Having students read news articles or novels, watch television snippets, engage in class discussions, essay-writing, emailing, and drafting letters are excellent ways to broach any number of society's systemic and oppressive social maladies. Engaging in these activities in the English language arts classroom can serve as a catalyst to encourage…

The authors suggest using scripting as a strategy to mentor and enhance author's voice in writing. Through gradual release, students use authentic literature as a model for writing with voice. The authors also propose possible extensions for independent practice, integration across content areas, and tips for evaluation.

Writing a screenplay was an assignment that was part of Storytelling Through Film, a program sponsored by the Austin Film Festival, a professional film organization. In six weeks, students in creative writing and English classes first learned about the genre of screenwriting and then wrote original screenplays. The curriculum was a collaborative…

This article presents a pedagogical experience that addresses the use of an instructional strategy called screenwriting aimed at improving the teaching of writing in an educational context. This pedagogical intervention took place in a private English language school, where three adult students willingly participated to create their own short…

Discusses four basic categories of restrictions within which the video script writer works: purpose, time, budget, and resources. Discusses how these variables work together to force creation of a document that can be produced. (SR)

Teaching communication used to be simple: teach writing and speaking. But today?s students must be able to communicate with pictures, both moving and still; audio; and text. This article shows how to design a series of lessons in which students create digital class videos during the course of content-specific units, discussing pre-production,…

Explains structure and its relevance for both the practice and teaching of screenwriting. (PD)

Shares practical information that technical writers can use when writing scripts for video presentations. Discusses the kinds of information needed for script writing, the steps involved in doing so, and the script's role in production and editing. (SR)

Based on the Screenwriting 434 graduate-level seminar at the University of California Los Angeles, this book guides readers/students through every step of the screenwriting process by putting them through the actual writing of an original script. Chapters in the book are: (1) Ideas; (2) The Two-Minute Movie; (3) Building Your Characters; (4) The…

A professional scriptwriter describes a semester course he teaches in which students are required to write 12 scripts. (PD)

Discusses a process to guide technical writers engaged in writing a script for a video production on a technical subject. Offers an example of the development of such a script from a video demonstrating a surgical procedure. (SR)

Most performer-writers accept the writing process simply as a means to an end: the shared performance event with a live audience. While writer-performers regard a script as more important than the performance, a solo performance is, however, a showcase of the artist's talent, and creating one's own text offers the performer artistic control. Some…

Developed by classroom teachers during the development phase of Minnesota's Graduation Standards, this performance package is made up of locally designed assignments that, taken together, show whether a student has learned and can apply the knowledge and skills related to creating and performing original artistic presentations. It begins with…