12 Guide Posts
12 Guideposts (Shortened)
Prior Knowledge:
- Students will have begun working on script analysis for Men On Boats
- Students will have prior knowledge of GOTEs
Objective:
- The student will be able to develop effective character choices by analyzing a script through 8 of Shurtleff’s 12 guideposts as evident through a production of Jaclyn Backhaus’s Men On Boats at the end of the 2nd 9 Weeks.
Teks:
- 1D, 2B, 3B, 3C, 4A, 4D, 4C, 4G
Materials:
- Scripts, Pencils, Highlighters, 12 Guideposts handout, 12 Guideposts fillable sheet, Dueling Objective Cards.
Vocabulary:
- Relationships, Conflict, The Moment Before, Humor, Opposites, Discoveries, Communication, Competition, Importance
Time required:
- One Week (Five 45 minute class periods)
Day 1
Relationships, Conflict, Discoveries.
Warm-up:
The students will play a game of “Honey, I love you, but I just can’t smile.”. One student will volunteer to be “it”. This student will go clockwise around the circle of students and attempt to make each person laugh within 15 seconds by only asking questions. Each time the person asks a question, the “it” person can only respond by saying the phrase “Honey, I love you, but I just can’t smile.” If the person succeeds and makes the “it” person smile/laugh, they become “it” and the game resumes.
Lesson:
Students will be handed a worksheet detailing Michael Shurtleff’s 12 Guideposts. The first day covers the archetypal relationships (Sibling, Parental, leader-follower, partner, etc.), Conflict (The relationship between Obstacles and Tactics: What am I fighting for?), and discoveries (Experiencing the scene like it is the first time).
Activity:
Dueling objectives. Students will volunteer in groups of two. They will receive a card with an archetypal relationship and a situation written on it. They will be given time individually to come up with their goals and the tactics they will use to achieve them. They will then be asked to improvise a scene where they must accomplish their objectives. They will discover that their situations have given them objectives that act against each other, creating a moment of discovery for the other. After each performance, we will discuss what conflict we saw by identifying the dueling objectives, and how their relationship would affect the scene. We will also see if we can identify the point of discovery where one person recognized the other’s objective
Exit-Ticket:
The students will connect one guidepost from today to their character by writing how they can apply it to their performance.
Day 2
The Moment Before, Humor, Opposites
The Moment Before, Humor, Opposites
Warm-up: Students will be asked to describe in detail what happened exactly between the moment their previous class was dismissed and the time the tardy bell rang on a piece of paper. We will then discuss how the moment before an event can affect what happens within a scene.
Lesson:
We will continue on with our discussion of Shurtleff’s guideposts with a discussion of The moment before (and how it impacts a scene), Humor (finding light in the darkest moment I.e. Betrayal, breakups, death, etc.), and Opposites
Activity:
Open Scenes. Students will be paired up and given an open scene. They will have a few minutes to discuss the scene with a partner and then perform for the class. After this performance, one student will leave the room, and the other will discuss a new “moment before” for the scene. The scene partner will return, and they will attempt the scene again to see how the moment before changes the dynamics of the scene.
Exit Ticket:
The students will connect one guidepost from today to their character by writing how they can apply it to their performance.
Day 3 Communication,
Competition, and Importance
Warm-up:
Meisner Listening Exercise – The students will participate in a partnering exercise using Miesner’s repetition. The students will make a neutral observation and their partner will repeat it.
Lesson:
The students will discuss how active listening is necessary both the actor and the character on stage. Every instance of communication must be delivered and received by both partners. We can compare this to a phone call, where one person must listen before they can respond. We will talk about how a character should always be trying to get their point across (Competition). In a scene, someone must be right, and someone must be wrong. We will also discuss how each character exists as a real person with things that are important to them and how those things can shape a scene.
Exit Ticket:
The students will identify what is important to their character throughout each scene in Men on Boats.
Day 4
Guidepost Application
Warm-up:
Students will complete a brief physical warm-up and prepare to have a working rehearsal. They will the campfire scene from Men On Boats which will be recorded for comparison.
Activity:
The students will work together to fill out a 12-guidepost worksheet for their characters and workshop how those guideposts affect their scenes. They will try different combinations and modifications to the information they chose to see what works best for the scene.
Exit Ticket:
The students will write a brief reflection on any discoveries and challenges they had today.
Day 5
Compare and Contrast
Warm-up:
Students will complete a brief physical warm-up and prepare to have a working rehearsal. They will the campfire scene from Men On Boats again with their solidified guideposts, which will be recorded for comparison.
Activity:
The students will watch both performance recordings back-to-back and write down specific differences, weak moments, and improvements they saw from one performance to the next. We will discuss what worked and didn’t work as a class and establish how we can work on these traits individually as part of tablework and preparation for a scene.
Exit Ticket:
The students will submit their written observations to our online learning platform.
Reflection
Guideposts were one of my favorite lessons from the entire summer program. I t is something I have attempted to teach before, but never had any formal training in it. The experience at the actor’s studio in Chicago was a great opportunity to start exploring the guideposts as an actor. I was VERY excited to implement this lesson as part of my curriculum, however, I quickly realized that I struggled with several of the guideposts myself. I have a firm grasp on relationships, conflict, place, discoveries, importance, and even humor (which is a little obscure in most online resources I found). The moment before exploration in Chicago was also an enlightening lesson for me. I can also understand the basics of finding the events and communication. I really find myself struggling with the concept of opposites, competition, gameplaying/roleplaying, and Mystery/Secret. I think going forward (especially in professional development) I would like to challenge myself to take more workshops on guideposts so that I can better facilitate the lesson to my students. My students were able to grasp relationships, conflict, and discoveries really easily and we have incorporated those into rehearsals regularly. I really like exploring the moment before, but they have a hard time grasping how that can help them set a scene. Finding the humor in every situation is also a challenge for the students, but that is because I can tell that they are only thinking of humor as “Haha, that’s funny” I also discovered that it is really hard to apply guideposts to a fairly large scene when students are struggling to be off book. In the future, I want to make sure that the expectation for memorization is met so that we can apply the acting techniques that we learn to the material without having to be on book.