Being a Screenwriter Part 2: Writing Your Screenplay Course Kit

This 10-unit, project-based screenwriting curriculum is designed to enrich students' writing and language skills in grades 6-8. This fun, engaging course gets right down to the business of developing scripts and encourages learners to brainstorm their experiences for a story idea. Students will then translate their ideas into an authentic script in this fun curriculum. They'll learn how to mesh characters, dialogue, and scenes into an interesting and entertaining short film!

The critical thinking skills essential to successful communication get a workout in real-life screenwriting tasks. Learners’ activities focus on extending ideas, leveraging creativity, encouraging conceptual development, and putting writing into a context of fun and imagination. Students use reflective journaling techniques to “free write,” practice dialogue, storyboard and sketch scenes, and practice criticism and evaluation of their own work and the work of their peers. 

Working from clips of an actual movie, Being a Screenwriter 2 also provides young writers with real-world examples of the concepts they are trying to master. Young writers come to grips with the notion of a screenplay as a plan, and learn to recognize the skills and attitudes of negotiating, flexibility, and adaptation as fundamental to writing success!

In Part 2, Writing Your Screenplay students armed with loglines, pitches, and treatments are ready to jump right into the work of turning their initial sketches into fully conceptualized and workable screen instructions. Step-by-step, they master the tricks of the trade, compiling ideas, shaping dialogues, creating fascinating personae, and investigating how conflict drives a story into production territory.

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Instructor Guide Preview

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Student Book Preview

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Course Outline

Lesson 1: Screenwriting 101 - Keys to a Great Script
A quick review of the screenwriting basics - genre, theme, setting, protagonist and antagonist - reinvigorates classroom excitement about the screenwriting enterprise. Students use a "Three-Act Structure" poster to launch their writing progress.

Lesson 2: Understanding Scenes - The Building Blocks of a Screenplay
Using a logline, learners begin the process of sketching the fundamental scenes of a hypothetical movie. Next, students apply scene structure diagramming to their own exciting movie ideas.

Lesson 3: The Scene Outline - Planning Your Screenplay
Students create their movie "blueprints" in Lesson 3, sketching up to fifteen different scenes for their upcoming blockbusters. Working with a partner, learners exchange ideas and get their frameworks for success down on paper.

Lesson 4: How Screenwriters Write - Screenplay Formatting
Form and function of the parts of a screenplay become abundantly clear to learners as they participate in a "table reading." Students have fun as they channel Pitt and Jolie in an exercise that helps them differentiate the unique purpose of individual script elements.

Lesson 5: How to Start a Screenplay - Writing Slug Lines and Transitions
Getting from one scene to the next is one of the most challenging tasks for screenwriters. In this lesson, learners get acquainted with the "fade," "cut," and "dissolve" techniques and begin to see the shape of their storylines.

Lesson 6: What Your Characters Do - Writing Action
From a raised eyebrow to a high-speed chase, all action in a screenplay can be scripted, and its relationship to character is critical. Learners develop "action points" in two activities in this lesson.

Lesson 7: How Characters Talk -The Importance of Dialogue
Dramatic language - the language that moves both stories and audiences - gets its due in this intriguing experiment with dialogue. Learners also test their knowledge of hallmark movie moments in a game of "Name That Quote."

Lesson 8: Writing Dialogue - Deciding What Their Characters Will Say
Before diving in to their own dialogue, learners practice dialogue formatting. Then they begin to reveal their quirky, evil or brainy characters for each scene developed earlier in Lesson 3’s "blueprint."

Lesson 9: Bringing It All Together - Finishing Your Screenplay
Great writers, and even screenwriters, know that sharing their work with others helps them identify their script’s greatest strengths and weaknesses. Feedback from fellow screenwriters in this peer review helps students put their best foot forward - before the cameras roll!

Lesson 10: Your Script Comes to Life - The Table Reading
Scripts at the ready, learners take on the roles of actors and hear the results of their hard work in this culminating activity. Even a "director" gets to participate. Ready? Lights, camera, action!

What's Included

Instructor’s Guide 

Every step is taken to provide an easy-to-follow format and informative, fun-to-read instructions for each lesson. In addition to a brief listing of objectives, materials, and set-up procedures, useful icons point the instructor to a number of key elements:

Notes for the Instructor: Brief instructor notes introduce the subject matter and challenges presented in the particular lesson. They often contain real-life, age-appropriate examples from movies that most students have seen.

Notes for the Students: These notes “set the stage” for each lesson by presenting brief material to read, listen to, and discuss.

Vocabulary: New and relevant terms are defined here. Note, too, the comprehensive “Glossary” at the end of the Instructor’s Guide and Student Books.

Activity Description: Here, step-by-step procedures are provided for both the instructor’s demonstration and the students’ immersion in the activity.

Wrap-up: Discussion-provoking questions and summary-type activities are designed to revisit the day’s learning and help students take their inquiry further.

Clean-up: Clear instruction on preserving and storing materials is provided to ensure kit longevity and cost effectiveness.

Other Destinations: To extend lessons and deepen understanding across disciplinary and cultural divides, relevant links to multimedia, web resources, and fun at-home or extension activities are provided here.

Student Books

Designed for students to record their writings class after class, the Student Books acquire a quality that keeps the young screenwriters engaged in their project over time. The books serve as companions to the Instructor’s Guide and contain activity worksheets, questions to spark the imagination, and are a tool for students to brainstorm their screenplay ideas.  

Online Resources

When you adopt Being a Screenwriter 2, your instructors will have access to a number of online resources. The Resource CD includes tutorials for each lesson, lesson extensions, and other great ideas for the classroom. Word search and crossword puzzles help reinforce newly learned and used vocabulary. Links to other multimedia resources provide authentic lesson extensions. If your organization does not have access to CD drives we can substitute a USB thumb drive with all the electronc resources at no extra charge. 

Supplies

The Being a Screenwriter Part 2 kit includes: