Single Day Residencies « Mr. Katzoff .org

Single Day Residencies

Poetry and Spoken Word Performances

Choral Reading and Reciting

Grades 3-8+; 3 hours; 1-3 classes jointly

Participating in an instructional hybrid mixing The Literacy Lesson with The Game Show, students study and perform a poem. They articulate the words. They vocalize the emotions. They consider the lives and times of the poet whose voice they are keeping alive. Students also compete, cooperate, and perform linguistic stunts. Selections come from the classics of Spoken Word such as Invictus by William Ernest Henley, I Hear American Singing by Walt Whitman, The Dream Keeper by Langston Hughes, The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus, The Tyger by William Blake, Sonnet 29 by William Shakespeare.

Play-in-a-Day Productions

Beware the Jabberwock!

Grades 3-8+; 3 hours; 1 class

This is Lewis Carroll’s heroic nonsense adventure with wacky characters, a brave Young Warrior, a King and a Queen with an old Prime Minister and, of course, one or two Monsters. Students must use context to understand vocabulary. They play with onomatopoeia and study genre, dramatic structure, poetic structure and author’s purpose. This all becomes necessary when young actors are performing a literary classic where borogroves are mimsy and Jabberwocks wiffle.

The Zax

Grades 3-8+; 3 hours; 2 classes jointly

Dr. Seuss scores again with robust rhymes, comical characters, and his trademark prosody expressing exquisite dramatic attitude. Students reflect on author’s purpose and discuss the Life Lessons Dr. Seuss is teaching us. They construct the play using elements of mime, movement, and abstract representation while articulating the Narrative and giving voice to character through Dialogue.

Caps for Sale

Grades pre-K-2; 3 hours; 1 class

Everybody’s favorite Read Aloud story about a peddler encountering trickster monkeys. Kids count, sequence, recite fluently, project their voices and play all the parts from the book. This is a perfect opportunity to foster Community Service Learning by having your youngest actors share their story with big brothers and sisters, or having the big kids perform the story for the little ones.

Graduation Inspiration

YOUR GRADUATING CLASS presents an inspirational poem.

A chorus of young voices VIGOROUS, CLEAR, COHERENT, faces the future in unison, internalizing and expressing beautiful words and noble sentiments.

Selections are from the classics of Poetry and Spoken Word such as I Hear America Singing by Walt Whitman, The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus, The Tyger by William Blake, Sonnet 29 by William Shakespeare, Invictus by William Ernest Henley, I Have a Dream by Rev. Martin Luther King.