Lit.

405

The Modern Mousetrap: Updating the play-within-a-play ploy

In ACT III.2 of Hamlet, our Danish prince uses an already-written story that closely resembles his fathers murder and inserts a few lines to drive the point home to Claudius. As we discussed, many of the audience members would know this play and therefore know the premise. In your groups, you will decide on a modern TV show, movie, play, song, scandal, etc. to catch the conscience of the king. Your chosen story does not need to mirror the murder plot exactly, but you will need to find a narrative that lends itself well to discussing murder, betrayal, dubious marriages, revenge, deceit, duplicity, corrupt politics, etc. (The good news is that nearly every story ever deals some of these issues.) Caveat: You may not use The Lion King STORYBOARDS and JUSTIFICATIONS are due at the end of class on Friday, April 4. INSTRUCTIONS: 1. Collaborate with your group members to find an already-established story. 2. Decide what moment in that story you will adapt/alter to make the characters/speakers address a Claudius-like murder plot. 3. Over the course of the next three days, design a storyboard that displays your scene (see the back of the page for more details on a good storyboard). 4. As a group, write a brief justification of your scene that answers the following questions: - What about this story lends itself well to the Hamlet play-within-a-play ploy? - How did you adapt the established story to evoke Claudiuss guilt? - Assuming you were updating Hamlet for a modern-day production, why would your story be effective for a modern audience? In other words, what cultural touchstones are you including to make your story relevant to a modern audience? Weds. 4/2 Thurs. 4/3 Friday 4/4 Group brainstorming session decide on your story and decide on the point in the story that you will include the play-within-a-play ploy. Begin to discuss your justifications. Use the Chromebooks to develop your storyboards Finish storyboards and write justification. Share with greenli@u4sd.org and jfried25@illinois.edu

MATERIALS - Storyboarding Google Drive template - Chromebook - Google image search STANDARDS ASSESSED:
1.1 Gather, integrate, and explain concise and appropriate textual evidence to support analysis of text. 1.4 Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take. 3.2 Present information such that audience can follow the line of reasoning specific to the established purpose. 4.1 Attend to the norms and conventions of standard English grammar and usage, capitalization, punctuation, and spelling in the discipline in which they are writing.

What is a Storyboard? A storyboard is a graphical representation of the all of the elements that will be included in a digital story. The storyboard is usually created before actual work on creating the digital story begins and a written description and graphical depiction of the elements of the story, such as images, text, narration, music, transitions, etc. are added to the storyboard. The elements of the story are arranged in the storyboard in the chronological order in which they will appear in the story and this allows the developer to organize and rearrange the content for maximum effect. Storyboards may be created in a variety of ways, both digitally and manually on paper or artists' board. If storyboards are developed on a computer, a variety of software programs may be used, such as Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Tips for Success 1. Make sure your storyboard progression is logical and coherent. Make the play-within-a-play ploy work with the already-established story you chose. 2. When creating a storyboard, the visual parts of the frames should be kept simple and the image in each frame should be one that best describes the action taking place, or concept being explained. The images can be simple sketches, or images from your own resources or found on the web. 3. Follow the prompts within the Google Drive Presentation they are meant to help you. Getting the Template 1. http://chargerlit405.weebly.com/hamlet.html 2. Click on the Modern Mousetrap Template link. 3. MAKE A COPY of the template do not edit the original. 4. Share your copy with your group members and make certain everyone can edit.

By Friday 4/4 at 3:30PM, share the finished version with greenli@u4sd.org and jfried25@illinois.edu