Group items tagged

The basic marshmallow challenge (detailed instructions here) is an ideal exercise to sharpen collaboration skills. It's works because it's so simple: groups of four are given 18 minutes to build the tallest free standing building they can with 20 sticks of uncooked spaghetti, one yard of masking tape, one yard of string, and one marshmallow. The time limit is important - it forces students to collaborate quickly. The competition aspect is also important - this pushes groups to work at their best.

Legends and Worlds is a tool that allows authors to move beyond the final prose, and collaborate on concepts and ideas. Explore the events, characters, locations, and stories that make up the author's creative universes.

Highlighted by songs in which women celebrate the murder of wayward men and a lawyer demonstrates the art of manipulating the media, musicals don't get much more cynical than Chicago. A ripped-from-the-headlines jazz-age play by Chicago Tribune reporter Maurine Dallas Watkins turned into a 1975 musical by songwriters John Kander and Fred Ebb in collaboration with Bob Fosse, Chicago enjoyed an initial run of qualified success, overshadowed by the crowd-pleasing A Chorus Line. It makes perfect sense, however, that it found a second audience on Broadway in the 1990s

The culminating activity for collaboration in the drama classroom is to have your students work on a devising project. It will definitely show you how well your students work together! More on devising in the next blog post, but here's an exercise to get your students in the right frame of mind.