A Few More Puppet Show ‘Elevator Pitches’

Yesterday, I shared out some of the “elevator pitch” summaries my sixth grade students are doing as they summarize the story ideas of their puppet show scripts, now in the process of being written. The original plays will eventually be performed live before younger students in our school (lessons on “audience” and plot design and genre are at the heart of the writing objectives here).

Here are a few more that caught my eye:

Our play is about four friends named Daisy the Elephant, Tiny Tim the penguin, Ruby the Bunny, and Jedidia the Polar Bear. Every year on January 23rd it snows enough that everyone will be able to snowboard and ski. The only problem is Yogi the Bear tries to ruin Mt. Snow by melting it all because he hates skiing and snowboarding from past experience. So far Yogi has failed to complete his plans to ruin melting the snow so nobody can ski and snowboard. This time Yogi finally has a plan to ruin Mt. Snow. To find out what happens next read A Day In Mt. Snow!

Our play is called “Sock Day” and it’s about a girl named Victoria that has a rotten twin brother named Victor. Victor puts crazy glue in her favorite boots and she puts them on to go to the mall and shop for crazy socks for Sock Day at school tomorrow. They have to find a way to take her boots off by the next day. They put jelly in her boots and they come off.

The name of our play is Mucho Taco Day. It is about a monster that eats all the food for the Tacos. Danielle and Kristine have to figure out a way to get the Tacos out of his stomach by pressing the open button on the back of his ear. Once they safely get it, they chase the monster off the edge of the mountain forever and everyone has a great Taco Day.

It was a important day in Monopoly Land (monopoly game board). The ship is trying to get to the boardwalk but the Thimble, car and Boston Terrier are trying to show the Ship a lesson of helping each other and trying to get to the boardwalk as well . In that time they go through some trouble with the Ship and the Jail guard. In the end, they all stay in a hotel at the boardwalk.

This play is about Bright Light Day where everybody hangs up lights.There is a boy named Gus and a mad scientist turns him into a shadow. Gus hates light day. So he destroys all the lights that TOM (who loves Light Day)was hanging up. The shadow flies away with Tom chasing him. Tom shoots his mini light gun into the shadows mouth. The shadow turns back into Gus.

Our play is about teamwork. It is called Fluff Day. It’s about three marshmallows, Fluff, Jiffy, and Fluffenutter who get captured by the evil s’more. The s’more’s plan is to get them in his body to make him a s’more.The reason is that a s’more is invincible and without marshmallow the s’more is just a cracker with chocolate. They fix there problem by working together to stop the s’more from taking them and becoming invincible.

One thing we notice is that the class I have right before lunch often writes a lot about food when it comes to creative writing. I find that funny, and so do they. The Light Day play is going to be interesting, because they want to use flashlights in a darkened room at times in the play. I’m not sure they can pull off their vision but we’ll see. And the Monopoly group has been so funny to watch, as they try to replicate parts of the game while developing their idea into a story.

All in all, the stories are coming along nicely and the groups are working better than most years. My job at this time is to be the “audience,” asking question about stories and characters, and offering some feedback. Mostly, though, I am just the advisor and they are doing what they need to do to get their plays done (we’ll pick it up again after holiday break, which starts tomorrow).

Peace (in the plays),
Kevin

One Comment
  1. You are going to video the puppet shows, I presume. Can hardly wait to see them.
    The composing process would be interesting to study. I wonder about the script and puppet activity interaction. And if they were to view a video and then revise, what would happen? As you say, audience is probably a vital factor. Do they know the children who will be watching? And what is the source material: are they working from mentor text? If so (and it must be to some degree), are they remembering something televised or computerized (e.g., Muppets, dogtrax cartoons . . .) or is it from print (picture book) text? Does oral tradition get involved?
    Just a wonderful activity. Thanks to Duke!

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