We are writing and performing skits using the characters from Dickens' A Christmas Carol. The only parameters I've given my classes are that they must use the characters and include at least three vocabulary words. These skits will be performed on a makeshift stage that accidentally sprung up in my room decades ago to cover up massive electrical wiring springing out of the floor. The students know this is all very informal: their scripts are first drafts, and their live performances are actually their first blocked rehearsals.
Epic failure is not only expected, it is encouraged.
Perhaps it is the informal nature of the assignment, but every student seems completely comfortable and natural on stage, even the usually shy and quiet ones. No one faints, no one officially falls off the stage, and no one seems nervous. In short, I am amazed at the zeal with which every one of them embraces this assignment that I just made up off the top of my head the day before it was put into action.
We have some classic moments: rewritten scenes from the play, modernized scenes, and one group of two people who manage to perform the entire play in five miniature acts in under four minutes. We also have some crazy creative moments, like Scrooge swimming in the ocean with sharks, Scrooge going to Mars, Tiny Tim up the beanstalk as Giant Tim, rapping Scrooge and Cratchit and Marley all played by studious girls in hoodies, a parallel universe, and elves helping Scrooge determine who has been bad and who has been good (candy canes awarded all around - yum).
We have a few moments of terror, as well, like when four boys lift one up to use as a battering ram and nearly face-plant the poor kid into my computer desk (the risk of not practicing a stunt first), an intended trip with quite a hard fall, a pretend knockout with a strange twist of the victim's left knee, and a genuine make-believe, ruler-based sword fight that requires not one, not two, but three foot-to-the-abdomen moves that send a student hurtling six inches off the edge of the stage and into the orchestra pit of our classroom.
In the end, no injuries are significant enough to warrant anything more strenuous than some hand sanitizer. Once the students finish skits and have corrected an exam that I hand back, we seem to have some extra time in two of my classes. One class opts for two very quick but intense games of Seven-Up. The other has performed a skit in which Scrooge is Tiny Tim's football coach. Suddenly the foam football starts being tossed. I indicate to Battering Ram Boy to go long and throw him a decent spiral. He scores. We win.
As the kids are leaving, one of my more cynical pals says, "This was the best day ever. Today's class was fun!"
I reply, "EVERY day is fun in here."
The students think about this for a moment then all nod their heads in agreement. Every day (pretty much) is fun in here. If learning weren't fun, I'd poke my eyeballs out. And while they may not have seen the incredible stuff being performed prior to the sudden intra-squad scrimmage, we are learning, we are engaging, and I've achieved something I've never achieved before: 100% engagement in a lesson for three straight days.
Thanks, kids, for being good sports, great citizens, responsible students, and spontaneous learners. If the amount it's going to cost me is nothing more than having a foam football handy, I am going to go buy dozens for my classroom.
And if the principal, vice principal, curriculum director, or superintendent open the door and see mayhem, I swear I will immediately pretend I've been taken hostage.
Hey, one of us is supposed to speak with the voice of reason. Might as well act the part.
