Point of View

Submitted by

David W. Sell
San Elizario H.S.
San Elizario, Texas
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Subjects: English/Writing/Co-operative Learning Round Robin

Purpose: Point of View-writing from 5 different characters point of view. Using language to show emotion and description. The importance of good hand-writing.

Materials: Enough paper headed Robber, Policeman, Clerk, Customer 1, Customer 2

Time frame: one block of 75 minutes are two class periods

Pre-Planning: Prior to each class you will need to have four students act a robbery: a robber, the clerk, and two customers. They will need to ad-lib the robbery complete with dialogue and props if possible. Each will need to be interviewed by the policeman. This can be modified for the drama.

Procedure:

1. Don't warn the students. After role, just tell the students to observe what is happening. You may want to set the stage since there won't be a physical store.
2. After acting out the drama, have the students divide in to groups of 5.
3. Hand each member a different paper headed clerk, robber, customer 1, customer 2. Be sure to tell them that they are to pretend that they are retelling the story from a different character's perspective. They are to show the thoughts and the emotions.
4. The TRICKY part:

   Give the students 3 minutes to write. Stop. Pass paper to right. Give students 5 minutes to read and then pick up the writing where other individual left off. Stop add an additional two minutes. 7 and so on. The last person writing will have about 10-12 minutes. Plan time accordingly.

5. At this point, you should have 5 people writing part of 5 different viewpoints. Now choose a recorder an have them read the accounts to the class. Each person show read the paper they enden up with.

Closure:

Talk about the difficulties each encountered, how the story changed from each view point, and the reliability of eye witness testimony. Also talk about how language and word choice can show emotion.

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