From Page to Stage

Course: English 220D-01 
When: MTWRF, 8:30-11:30am
Instructor: Lynn H. Elliot
Office: Taylor 218
Phone: 530-898-5305
Email: lelliot@csuchico.edu

Week 1 (June 28 - July 2)
Week 2 (July 5-9)
Week 3 (July 12-16)

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". . . interpretation starts out by asking you to speak up, to respond to the fullness of the story, and to experience what the characters are undergoing. Not only can you put to use all those `facts’ you learned in other literature courses, but you can engage yourself at the same time. You select literature you respond to; and in the process of carefully analyzing it and rehearsing it, you come to understand how it lives and how (and often why) it moves you. You can then communicate what you have discovered to the audience; and the audience is doubly enriched because it sees and hears a performance that is not simply the words of a poet and not simply the interpretation of the performer, but a rich blending of the two." (Lee and Gura, Oral Interpretation)

This course will synthesize skills obtained in other Creative Writing classes and enable you to gain new perspectives on the performance potential inherent in your own written work and in that of other established authors. The course will expand your sense of the fluid boundaries between genres and your ability to bring your writing to an audience beyond the conventional reading audience.

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Required Texts:

Night Watches, Carole Oles.

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Course Requirements:

ATTENDANCE. Given the nature of the course, it is vitally important that you participate daily.

JOURNAL ENTRIES. Each entry is one-page minimum and is a response to NIGHT WATCHES or package material. You will discuss your responses with class members.

GROUP AND PERSONAL WORK CULMINATING IN FINAL PERFORMANCE. You will participate in choosing the content and the form for your group’s final performance.

NOTE: There is a prerequisite to this class: Successful completion of lower-division creative writing courses. You should have a body of work upon which you can draw for the final performance.

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Weekly schedule (English 220D--Elliot)

Week 1 (June 28 - July 2)

Topics for discussion:

Voice, locus and persona. The relationship between performer, material and audience.The physical aspects of performance, specifically, the use of voice in performance in terms of: breath control; volume, control and focus of projection; pitch and quality; rate and pause; and intelligibility of speech.

Journal entry on Oles’s "Night Watches," Parts 1 and II.
What ‘voices’ are used in the poem?
Choose one poem from each section for journal entry and class discussion.
What transitions are employed between individual poems and between Part I and II?

Group and Personal work:

Bring own work to class. Themes, issues? Brief overview. Title, genre, description, theme. Persona, locus, audience. What do you want to perform before an audience? How? Why?

Does one person have to read his/her poem? Are there other voices in the poem? Could they be given to others? Same with prose. No choice in drama.

Form and content: You will discuss and begin informing and enriching your work with other various genres or discourses, such as letters, essays, biography, diaries, news reports, music.

Begin forming thematic groups for the culminating performance, sharing work, exploring ways in which their work might be performed (solo, choral, etc.). Each group will be responsible for a beginning performance of one short work or part of a work in front of the class by the end of the week.

What will be the overall title for culminating performance?

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Week 2 (July 5-9)

Topics for discussion:

A continuing look at poetry in terms of language and types or forms (dramatic, lyric, narrative), as well as structure (stanza, line, cadence, rhyme).

Discussion of solo and group performance of drama in terms of: working a scene; rhythm; style; and scenography.

Exploration of group performance of literature, contrasting it with solo performance of literature. We will also look at readers theatre and chamber theatre.

Journal entry on Oles’s "Night Watches," Part III. What ‘voices’ are used in the poem? Choose one poem for journal entry and class discussion. What transitions are employed between individual poems and between Part I, II and III?

Group and Personal work:

Continued work on group performances.

Focus on the narration in your work, looking at: point of view; action and plot; character; dialogue; setting; and cutting and excerpting.

Groups will make a written plan or map of the materials they are performing as a culminating project: the cast for each; the director for each; an analysis of each in terms of performance.

You will begin staging your complete work, focusing on: control; memorizing lines (if needed); setting the scene; properties; embodying characters; coordinating voice and bodies of characters; physical contact; and interplay of characters (such as picking up cues). Throughout, class members will critique each group’s performance.

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Week 3 (July 12-16)

Focus on final performance:

Rehearsals, critiques and run-throughs of culminating solo and group performances.

Class will make final decisions on timing of final performance. It will also prepare programs and flyers to advertise the performance.