Critical Literacy ~ Drama (update)

Critical Literacy  for Directors

 “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world” (Nelson Mandela)

1. Textual Purposes

a. What is this play about? A woman named Mel who is still living with the memory of a guy in her class that mystory died How do we know? Because in multiple moments they mention the guy and how she keeps bringing him up.

b. Who would be most likely to watch this play and why? Young adults, or Mature teens because of how it's dealing with tuff topics.

c. What does the author of this play want the audience to know? That it is fine to be able to have these thoughts about someone but don't become too hung up and don't pretend like nothing has happened.

2. Textual Structures and Features 

a. What are the structures and features of this play? 

b. What period/genre does this play belong to? 

d. What kind of language is used in the play? 

3.  ROLES

a. How are roles constructed in this text?  

B. As director how would you prepare actors to convey these roles

4. Power and Interest 

a,.  What knowledge does the audience need to bring to this text in order to understand it? 

B.   Which positions, voices, and interests are at play in this text? 

C,  How is the audience positioned in relation to the performance of this play? 

g. How does the text depict age, gender, cultural groups? 

5. Gaps and Silences 

a. Are there gaps and silences in the play? 

b. Who is missing from the play? 

c. What has been left out of the play? 

d. What questions about itself does the play not raise? 

6. Whose View? Whose Reality? 

a. What views of the world is the play presenting? 

b. What kinds of social realities does the play portray? 

c. How does the play construct a version of reality? 

d. What is real in the text? 

e. How would the text be different if it were told in another time, place, or culture? 

7. Understanding the playwrite

1. What view of the world and values does the playwrite have? How do we know? 

8. Multiple Meanings
a. What different interpretations of the play are possible? 

b. How else could the text have been written? 

As DIRECTOR what do you want this play to look like/ sound like and feel like for the audience?