Grades 3–6

Passport TO CULTURE

Teacher’s Resource Guide

Generous support for Schooltime provided,

in part, by

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S C H O O L T I M E P E R F O R M A N C E S E R I E S • S C H O O L Y E A R 2 0 0 9 - 2 0 1 0

Frindle

Griffin Theatre

Company

just imagine

2 Passport to culture • Frindle

Arts Education and You The New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) Arts Education Department presents the 13th season of the Verizon Passport to Culture SchoolTime Performance Series.

With Passport to Culture, Verizon and NJPAC open up a world of culture to you and your students, offering the best in live performance from a wide diversity of traditions and disciplines. At NJPAC’s state-of-the-art facility in Newark, with support from Verizon, the SchoolTime Performance Series enriches the lives of New Jersey’s students and teachers by inviting them to see, feel, and hear the joy of artistic expression. The exciting roster of productions features outstanding New Jersey companies as well as performers of national and international renown. Meet-the-artist sessions and NJPAC tours are available to expand the arts adventure.

The Verizon Passport to Culture SchoolTime Performance Series is one of many current arts education offerings at NJPAC. Others include: • Professional Development Workshops that support the use of the arts to enhance classroom curriculum • Arts Academy school residency programs in dance, theater and literature, and Early Learning Through the Arts—the NJ Wolf Trap Program • After-school residencies with United Way agencies

In association with statewide arts organizations, educational institutions, and generous funders, the Arts Education Department sponsors the following arts training programs: • Wachovia Jazz for Teens • The All-State Concerts • The Star-Ledger Scholarship for the Performing Arts • The Jeffery Carollo Music Scholarship • Summer Youth Performance Workshop • Young Artist Institute • NJPAC/New Jersey Youth Theater Summer Musical Program

Students have the opportunity to audition for admission to NJPAC’s arts training programs during NJPAC’s annual Young Artist Talent Search. Detailed information on these programs is available online at njpac.org. Click on Education. The Teacher’s Resource Guide and additional activities and resources for each production in the Verizon Passport to Culture SchoolTime Series are also online. Click on Education, then on Performances. Scroll down to “Download Teacher Guide in Adobe Acrobat PDF format” and select desired guide.

Permission is granted to copy this Teacher’s Resource Guide for classes attending the 2009-2010 Verizon Passport to Culture SchoolTime Performance Series. All other rights reserved.

To Teachers and Parents The resource guide accompanying each performance is designed • to maximize students’ enjoyment and appreciation of the performing arts; • to extend the impact of the performance by providing discussion ideas, activities, and further reading that promote learning across the curriculum; • to promote arts literacy by expanding students’ knowledge of music, dance, and theater; • to illustrate that the arts are a legacy reflecting the traditional values, customs, beliefs, expressions, and reflections of a culture; • to use the arts to teach about the cultures of other people and to celebrate students’ own heritage through self-expression; • to reinforce the New Jersey Department of Education’s Core Curriculum Content Standards in the arts.

CONTENTSOn Stage 3

In the Spotlight 4

Theater Talk 5

The Dictionary – A Living Document

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Before and After Activities 7

Teaching Science Through Theater

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Delving Deeper 8

FoundationKid Power!Through energy efficiency and conservation, kids can help preserve our planet’s rich natural resources and promote a healthy environment.

Tip of the DayThe word “green” is not just the name of a color any more. It also refers to ecological awareness and the preservation of natural resources. “Going green,” for example, has become a popular term referring to actions that people can take to curb harmful effects on the environment. By buying and using environmentally friendly “green products” such as non-toxic household cleaners and personal products, you can help minimize the negative effect chemicals can have on our air, water, soil, animal life, and plants. Made possible through the generosity of the PSEG Foundation.

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Frindle, Andrew Clements’s quirky, imaginative book about creative thought and the power of words is faithfully brought to life by the Griffin Theatre Company.

Slick Nick Allen is famous throughout Lincoln Elementary School as a world class “Idea Man.” His diabolical ability to finagle teachers out of handing out their homework assignments has earned him the admiration of his peers and a reputation that has preceded him into the fifth grade classroom of the ominous Mrs. Granger.

In the last moments of Mrs. Granger’s first-day lecture on the importance of words and their definitions, Nick comes up with the perfect question to keep her pontificating safely past the final bell: “Where do words come from?” Mrs. Granger counters by turning the question into a personal research project

for Nick. Thus begins Nick’s experiment with words, a by-product of his power struggle with Mrs. Granger over what constitutes a “real word.”

Nick inadvertently escalates this struggle into a national craze when he decides to create a new word for “pen.” The word is “frindle.” Once unleashed, frindle takes on a life of its own. The dispute between Mrs. Granger and Nick spreads all over the school, then the town, then throughout the entire country in a media “Frindle Frenzy.” The struggle ends decades later when Mrs. Granger sends Nick the latest edition of a dictionary with Nick’s word included. Nick realizes that his virtuoso fifth grade teacher endowed him with a brilliant time-released lesson about language, community and having the courage to stand up for personal ideas in the face of serious opposition.

Clements has described his book Frindle as being about “great teaching and great teachers and about the life that surges through corridors and classrooms every school day.” Classes experiencing the performance of this play will be inspired to think about perseverance, conflict and the “annoying” people who have had a positive impact on their lives as a catalyst for constructive change. They will also be inspired to think about language and the meaning of words.

Passport to culture • Frindle

On StagePh

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Nick and His Classmates

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In the Spotlight

Passport to culture • Frindle

Griffin Theatre Company, based in Chicago, Illinois, is a non-profit theater company committed to performing affordable and imaginative live performances of original works and adaptations. Children’s programming at the Griffin seeks to educate as well

Andrew Clements (Author) taught in public schools near Chicago for seven years before moving east to begin a career in publishing. Clements was 35 years old when he began to write his own books. Frindle was the first book he created for middle school readers. Clements attributes his passionate interest in books and reading to his parents, who were avid readers and to an elementary school librarian who always made sure he had something good to read.

William Massolia (Adaptor) is the artistic director of the Griffin Theatre Company and the author of many children’s plays including The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, Little Brother, Be More Chill, and Sleeping Ugly.

Richard A. Barletta (Director) is currently the producing director of the Griffin Theatre Company. He has directed a number of productions at the Griffin since its founding in 1988 including Loving Little Egypt, McKay’s Bees, Riding the Dolphin, and Shakespeare’s Dog.

as entertain by selecting award-winning materials based on popular children’s literature and encouraging groups to read and discuss the work before seeing the play adapted from it. In 2000, the organization created a national touring company and has been bringing its productions for young people to prestigious venues all across the country ever since. The Griffin’s goal is to remind its audience that imagination is not an escape from reality but a creator of possibility.

Nick and Mrs. Granger

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Theater Talk

props - items used on stage to help create a sense of place such as a photograph, flag or map; the belongings used by a character on stage such as a purse, hand mirror or sandwich.

scene - a division of a play, usually part of an act, in which the action is continuous.

scenery - painted canvas mounted on wooden frames, drops, cutouts, etc., used in a theater to represent the location or environment where the action takes place.

script - the text of a play.

set - the arrangement of scenery and props on a stage.

upstage - the part of the stage furthest from the audience.

actor - a person who interprets a role and performs it in a play.

adaptation - a composition that has been recast into a new form.

apron - the section of the stage floor that projects out into the auditorium.

artistic director - the person who chooses the material and oversees the entire theatrical production. He or she coordinates the efforts of many people including the author, set designer, artisans, musicians, actors, and technicians.

climax - the crucial moment, turning point or dramatic high point in the action or plot, usually near the end of the story or play.

comedy - a story or play treating characters and situations in a funny or amusing way.

dialogue - a conversation in a play between two or more characters.

director - the person who conceives of an overall concept for a production, supervises all elements of the production and guides the actors in their performances.

downstage - the part of the stage nearest the audience.

ensemble - a group of actors who work collaboratively to develop, rehearse and perform a production and equally share responsibilities within the performance.

monologue - a speech by one actor that often reveals the inner thoughts and feelings of the character that he or she is portraying.

playwright - the person who writes the play.

Passport to culture • Frindle

Nick and His Classmates

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Did You Know?

In the play Frindle, Mrs. Granger tells Nick that words make it into a dictionary when the extent of their use by ordinary people meets with reasonably established criteria. So how do lexicographers (the people who write, compile or edit a dictionary) figure out what these ordinary people have decided? What is the process that ends with a word earning a place in the dictionary?

Gathering InformationThe process for including words in the dictionary starts with editors who spend several hours a day searching all sorts of printed and electronic media for new words. Their sources include newspapers, magazines, professional journals and periodicals, movie and television scripts, song lyrics, novels, advertising, online sites such as blogs or web pages, and recreational sources such as sports, computer and video games. What the editors are looking for are entirely new words such as staycation (a vacation that is spent from home), webisode (a short audio or video presentation on the Web), zerg (to assure a victory using overwhelming numbers), volumizing (such as a volumizing shampoo which

will enhance the thickness or body of hair), kiduage (language used mainly by children) or existing words that have taken on a new meaning such as bounce (to leave) or kicks (sneakers).

When a word of interest is found, the editor makes a note of it, along with its context and anything else that might help define and clarify its meaning and use. These notes are recorded electronically on a computer database and also on printed cards to create citations. A citation description contains not just the definition but all of the information that will be included if the word is incorporated into the dictionary. Some of these additional elements include:

• pronunciation - Words can have different pronunciations based on the region or even the country in which English is spoken.

• form - When a new word comes into use, it may appear in more than one form. When editors at the Oxford English Dictionary started looking into the word “e-tailer” (a retailer who primarily uses the Internet as a medium

for customers to shop for the goods or services provided), they found it in the forms of e-tailer, E-tailer, eTailer, and etailer. It simply takes time for a standard form of a new word to crystallize. Often all of the forms of a word are included in the dictionary listing. That is especially true for Internet versions of the dictionary in order to make it easy for users to find the entry no matter what form of the word they use for their search.

• etymology - The etymology of a word is its linguistic history. This history includes information about the roots of the word – how the sounds, spelling and meanings originated and evolved over time. For example, the Merriam Webster Online Dictionary’s entry for “mouse potato” (a person who spends a great deal of time using a computer) offers “after couch potato” as the etymology of the term.

• quotations - Editors will select several quotations from their sources that illustrate how the word is being used or has been used over a span of time.

From Citation File To DictionaryThe decision on whether a word makes it into the next edition of a dictionary or not depends on the weight of the evidence in the citation. The sources must provide a strong case for the suggested meaning and pronunciation as well as the word’s extent of use. For example, at the Oxford English Dictionary, the rule of thumb is that any word can be included that appears five times, in five different printed sources (in a wide range of publications) over a period of five years. The people responsible for deciding which words need to be added to the dictionary as well as deciding which entries should be dropped are called “definers.”

With words constantly being added and deleted, the dictionary is a living document that responds slowly and carefully to changes in the ways we communicate with each other.

Nick and Mrs. Granger

The Dictionary – A Living Document

7Passport to culture • Frindle

In the ClassroomBefore the Performance

After the Performance

Additional Before and After activities can be found online at njpac.org. Click on Education, then SchoolTime Performances. Scroll down and click on MORE: Teacher Guides and Curriculum Materials. Select the guide and resource pages desired in PDF format.

1. Have your students read and discuss the novel Frindle.

• Have the students select and illustrate their favorite scene or event from the book. Ask them to think about what the main characters might look like and the clothing they might wear. Ask them to think about the setting – the appearance of the classroom, street or home where the event occurs.

• Display the drawings and ask the students to identify each scene and describe what they think is happening in the picture. Have them analyze and assess the elements that helped them identify the scene.

• Have each student choose another classmate’s drawing and write some dialogue for the scene depicted. Try to extend the dialogue until there are at least 10 exchanges (five per character in a two character scene).

• Have the authors cast and direct their scenes. (1.1, 1.3, 1.4)*

1. Ask your students to write a review of the Griffin Theatre Company’s production of Frindle using a four-star rating system. A four-star rating requires a discussion of four things that they liked about the production. A three-star rating would require discussion of three elements they liked and one they did not like. A two-star rating requires discussion of two positive and two negative elements and a one-star rating requires discussion of one positive and three negative elements. (1.4)

2. The “Frindle Incident” incited a media blitz in the small town of Westfield. Have your students select a character in the town and prepare that character for a press conference by composing a statement describing what personally happened to him or her in the story. Encourage your students to elaborate, expand and exaggerate the actual details. Give students the option of using characters that are not in the book or performance, but that are a logical part of the setting. (Example: Nick’s dog or the local hotel manager.) Ask the students to read their statements. After each statement is read, conduct a Q &A run by the attending “reporters” (the teacher and other students). (1.1, 1.3)

* Number(s) indicate the NJ Core Curriculum Content Standard(s) supported by the activity.

Teaching Science Through Theater (K-8)By Sharon J. Sherman, Ed.D.

Theater provides children with new experiences and allows them to see the world in different ways. Creative thought and the power of words bring imaginative new life to familiar objects, and a darkened theater can be transformed into a spatial canvas where new ideas germinate. A theatrical performance is also a wonderful way to introduce the concept of light, as objects are often illuminated, creating a sparkling world of drama and motion that captures the imagination.

In accordance with New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Science Standards, kindergartners should investigate light energy using one or more of their senses. Have the youngsters look for shadows on the playground at different times of the day and under different weather conditions. Then, ask them to create simple dramatizations to present their findings.

First and second graders learn that an object can be seen when light strikes it and is reflected to a viewer’s eye. If there is no light, objects cannot be seen. When light strikes substances and objects through which it cannot pass, shadows result. In the classroom, have the children apply a variety of strategies to collect evidence that if there is no light, objects cannot be seen. Have them present their evidence by acting out the relationship between a light source, a solid object and the resulting shadow. They should use variations of locomotor and nonlocomotor movement. (A locomotor movement involves moving from one place to another like running and sliding. A nonlocomotor movement is performed while remaining in one spot without going anywhere. Examples of non-locomotor movements are twisting, bending and swaying).

Third and fourth graders learn that light travels in straight lines. When light travels from one substance to another (air and water), it changes direction. Ask the students to create an improvisation to explain what happens when light travels from air into water. Fifth and sixth graders learn that light travels in a straight line until it interacts with an object or material. Light can be absorbed, redirected, bounced back, or allowed to pass through. They also learn that the path of reflected or refracted light can be predicted. Seventh and eighth graders learn that light energy from the sun is Earth’s primary source of energy, heating Earth’s surfaces and providing the energy that results in wind, ocean currents and storms. Have your students produce scripted scenes to illustrate these concepts. Sharon J. Sherman, Ed.D. is Dean of the School of Education and Professor of Teacher Education at Rider University in Lawrenceville, NJ. The Teaching Science Through the Arts content of this guide is made possible through the generous support of Roche.

Arthur Ryan ……………..........................…………………………………………………………………….Chairman Lawrence P. Goldman ………..................…………………………………..President & Chief Executive Officer Sandra Bowie………………….....................……………………………………..Vice President for Arts Education Sanaz Hojreh ……………..................….……………………………..Assistant Vice President for Arts Education Donna Bost-White……......................….……………………………….Director for Arts Education/Special Projects Jeffrey Griglak………......................……………….………………………………..……..Director for Arts Training Verushka Spirito……......................…………………………………………...Associate Director for Performances Ambrose Liu………………........................……………………………………....Associate Director for Residencies Caitlin Evans Jones………….......................………………………………….…Associate Director for Residencies Faye Competello……………........................…………………………………....Associate Director for Arts Training Mary Whithed………....................………..………………………………….....Program Coordinator for ResidenciesJoanna Gibson.......................................................................................Manager of Wachovia Jazz for Teens Laura Ingoglia…………..............................................…................………......Editor of Teacher’s Resource Guide

Writer: Judith Wiener

Editor: Laura Ingoglia

Design: Pierre Sardain, 66 Creative, Inc. 66Creative.com

NJPAC Guest Reader: Faye Competello

Curriculum Review Committee: Judith Israel Mary Lou Johnston Amy Tenzer

Copyright © 2010 New Jersey Performing Arts Center All Rights Reserved

One Center Street Newark, New Jersey 07102Administration: 973 642-8989Arts Education Hotline: 973 353-8009artseducation@njpac.org

NJPAC wishes to thank Griffin Theatre Company and Jessica Giametta, Office/Contract Manager at The Brad Simon Organization, Inc., for assistance in preparing this guide.

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Delving Deeper Acknowledgmentsas of 11/06/09

Passport to culture • Frindle

For even more arts integration resources, please go to Thinkfinity.org, the Verizon Foundation’s signature digital learning platform, designed to improve educational and literacy achievement.

Books for Teachers

Allen, Janet. Words, Words, Words: Teaching Vocabulary in Grades 4-12. Stenhouse Publishers, 1999. Strategies to help students enhance their vocabularies and enjoy playing with words and language.

Beck, Isabel L., Margaret McKeown, and Linda Kucan. Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction. Guilford Press, 2002.

Websites

multcolib.org/talk/guides-frindle.html - Story-based questions for provoking thought and discussion among students.

wordcentral.com - Merriam-Webster’s site offers word related activities for students and resources for teachers.

thinkfinity.org/SearchDetail.aspx?ID=55100 - In this ReadWriteThink lesson, an arts integrated resource from Thinkfinity.org, students engage in morphemic analysis by using their knowledge of morphemes to define words, using a dictionary to confirm the meaning and spelling of unfamiliar words and combining morphemes to create new words. This lesson includes sample morphemes. (Grades 3-5)

Additional resources can be found online at njpac.org. Click on Education, then SchoolTime Performances. Scroll down and click on MORE: Teacher Guides and Curriculum Materials. Select the guide and resource pages desired in PDF format.

NJPAC Arts Education programs are made possible by the generosity of: Bank of America, Allen & Joan Bildner & The Bildner Family Foundation, The Arts Education Endowment Fund in Honor of Raymond G. Chambers, Leon & Toby Cooperman, The Horizon Foundation for New Jersey, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Amy C. Liss, McCrane Foundation, Merck Company Foundation, Albert & Katharine Merck, The Prudential Foundation, The PSEG Foundation, David & Marian Rocker, The Sagner Family Foundation, The Star-Ledger/Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation, Surdna Foundation, The Turrell Fund, Verizon, Victoria Foundation, Wachovia, The Wal-Mart Foundation and The Women’s Association of NJPAC.

Additional support is provided by: Advance Realty Foundation, C.R. Bard Foundation, Becton, Dickinson & Company, The Frank and Lydia Bergen Foundation, Bloomberg, Chase, The Citi Foundation, The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Veronica Goldberg Foundation, Meg & Howard Jacobs, Johnson & Johnson, Kraft Foods, Marianthi Foundation, The MCJ Amelior Foundation, The New Jersey State Council on the Arts, The George A. Ohl, Jr., Foundation, Pechter Foundation, PNC Foundation on behalf of the PNC Grow Up Great program, The Provident Bank Foundation, E. Franklin Robbins Charitable Trust, Roche, TD Charitable Foundation, Target, The United Way of Essex & West Hudson, Lucy and Eleanor S. Upton Charitable Foundation, The Edward W. & Stella C. Van Houten Memorial Fund, and The Blanche M. & George L. Watts Mountainside Community Foundation.