This first Performance English text in the Middle School Series uses radio drama as the stage for an activities-charged language arts program. Classic radio thrillers, Hawaiian ghost stories, and local student writing energize an intriguing array of individual and group projects. Included are journal freewriting topics keyed to each lesson. The Comedy Hour extends the radio drama format into the realm of the trickster. From ancient folk tales to modern sitcoms, the trickster has delighted us by confounding our expectations and scrambling our conventions.
Student activities capitalize on the trickster's bag of riddles, rhymes, and linguistic tomfoolery.
Students' journal freewriting evolves into comic playwriting, and the whole class reads along to Mark Twain's literal tomfoolery in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Robert Nye's lively retelling of the epic Beowulf. In development Going Solo introduces the personal narrative and encourages students to appreciate and refine the unique flavor of their writing voice by telling the stories they have lived. To Kill a Mockingbird. Local encapsulates the experience of growing up in Hawai'i. We've included in this anthology student work, new work by emerging writers, and work by more established writers.