Overview

Lesson Procedure

55-65 minutes of class time across 5 phases.

1. Warm-Up5-10 minutes
2. Direct Instruction15-20 minutes
3. Guided Practice15 minutes
4. Independent Practice15 minutes
5. Closure5 minutes

1. Warm-Up5-10 minutes

   Warm-Up Prompt

   "Close your eyes while your teacher reads one sentence aloud: 'A small gray kitten crept along the top of the garden wall, one careful paw at a time.' What did you see in your head? Now open your eyes and look at the drawing on the board. What changed?"

   Ask three or four students to describe their kitten and the wall: the colors, the size of the wall, what was around it. The pictures will be different, because each reader built one from the same eighteen words. Then draw a quick kitten on a wall on the board. Ask: What did the drawing decide for you? What did you lose? This is the heart of RL.6.7. When we read, we "see" and "hear" with our imagination. When we listen to or watch a performance, someone else's choices reach our real eyes and ears.

2. Direct Instruction15-20 minutes

   Terms to know:

   • Performance: a text read, spoken, sung or acted for listeners or viewers. In this lesson we meet three kinds. An audio version (a recording you only hear, such as an audiobook or podcast); a video version (a recording you watch, such as a film or an animated video); and a live version (a performance that happens in front of an audience, such as a play on a stage).
   • "See" and "hear" when reading: the pictures and sounds you imagine from the words on the page. Your inner voice is the voice you "hear" in your head when you read silently.
   • Perceive: take in through your senses. In a performance, you perceive real sounds with your ears and real sights with your eyes.
   • Stanza: a group of lines in a poem, set apart by a space. A refrain is a line or group of lines that repeats, often at the end of each stanza.
   • Rhythm: the pattern of strong and weak beats in lines of poetry, like the beat in music. Rhyme: words that end with the same sound, such as "round" and "drowned."
   • Narrator: the voice that tells a story or poem. In a performance, the narrator's words are read by a real person.
   • Stage directions: the words in a play script, usually in italics, that tell actors what to do and describe the set, sounds and lights. Readers see them, but an audience usually does not hear them spoken.
   • Sound effect: a sound added to a performance, such as wind or splashing water.
   • Compare: tell how two things are alike. Contrast: tell how they are different. RL.6.7 asks for both.

   Introduce the poem. Edward Lear (1812-1888) was an English artist and writer who made up "nonsense" poems: poems full of silly events and invented words that are fun to read aloud. In "The Jumblies," a band of small creatures called the Jumblies go to sea in a sieve (a kitchen tool full of holes, used to drain water from food), though everyone tells them they will sink. Words to know: morn (morning), don't care a button or a fig (don't care at all), far and few (far away and not many), veil (a thin piece of cloth), mast (the pole that holds up a sail), upset (tipped over), happen what may (no matter what happens), crockery-jar (a large pottery jar), rash (acting without thinking of the danger). Read the poem once silently. Before anyone hears it aloud, have students jot down one thing they "see" and one thing they "hear" in stanza I. Then read the video notes. Tell students that the video and the recording are imagined performances written for this lesson, so that every choice can be checked against the poem.

   1They went to sea in a sieve, they did;
   In a sieve they went to sea:
   In spite of all their friends could say,
   On a winter's morn, on a stormy day,
   5In a sieve they went to sea.
   And when the sieve turned round and round,
   And every one cried, "You'll all be drowned!"
   They called aloud, "Our sieve ain't big;
   But we don't care a button, we don't care a fig:
   10In a sieve we'll go to sea!"
   Far and few, far and few,
   Are the lands where the Jumblies live:
   Their heads are green, and their hands are blue
   And they went to sea in a sieve.

   [...]
   15They sailed away in a sieve, they did,
   In a sieve they sailed so fast,
   With only a beautiful pea-green veil
   Tied with a ribbon, by way of a sail,
   To a small tobacco-pipe mast.
   20And every one said who saw them go,
   "Oh! won't they be soon upset, you know?
   For the sky is dark, and the voyage is long;
   And, happen what may, it's extremely wrong
   In a sieve to sail so fast."
   25Far and few, far and few,
   Are the lands where the Jumblies live:
   Their heads are green, and their hands are blue;
   And they went to sea in a sieve.

   [...]
   The water it soon came in, it did;
   30The water it soon came in:
   So, to keep them dry, they wrapped their feet
   In a pinky paper all folded neat;
   And they fastened it down with a pin.
   And they passed the night in a crockery-jar;
   35And each of them said, "How wise we are!
   Though the sky be dark, and the voyage be long,
   Yet we never can think we were rash or wrong,
   While round in our sieve we spin."
   Far and few, far and few,
   40Are the lands where the Jumblies live:
   Their heads are green, and their hands are blue;
   And they went to sea in a sieve.

   1Production notes. This is an imagined animated video of the first three stanzas of "The Jumblies." It lasts about two minutes. Viewers hear every word of the poem: one narrator reads most of it, other voices join in for a few lines, and the pictures move while she reads.

   2The Jumblies. The animators drew the Jumblies as small, round creatures about the size of young children, with lime-green heads and bright blue hands. They added one thing the poem never mentions: every Jumbly wears an orange striped sweater.

   3The sieve. The sieve is a huge kitchen sieve, a round metal bowl full of tiny holes, with a long wooden handle sticking out behind it.

   4The friends. A crowd of worried friends in winter coats and scarves stands on the shore. When they cry "You'll all be drowned!", viewers hear a dozen voices shouting at once and see the friends waving their arms.

   5The weather. For "a winter's morn, on a stormy day," the video shows gray waves, falling snow and dark clouds, and a howling wind plays under the narrator's voice.

   6The refrain. Each time "Far and few, far and few" comes, the storm sounds stop, a flute plays a soft, floating tune, and the Jumblies sing the four lines together in high voices.

   7The sail. The pea-green veil fills with wind and snaps, and the ribbon that ties it flutters.

   8Spinning. In the third stanza, water squirts up through the holes, the Jumblies wrap their feet in pink paper, and the sieve spins around and around. The picture spins with it, so for a few seconds viewers feel dizzy too.

   9The pace. The video never stops or slows down. The narrator reads at an even speed, and the pictures change every few seconds.

   • Contrast what you "see": the Jumblies themselves

     Line 13 tells us only this about how the Jumblies look: "Their heads are green, and their hands are blue." What does a reader see, and what does a viewer of the video see?

     Result: A reader builds a picture from those few words and must decide everything else: how big the Jumblies are, what shape, and what shade of green. Two readers will picture two different Jumblies. The video decides for the viewer: "small, round creatures about the size of young children, with lime-green heads and bright blue hands" (video notes, paragraph 2). It even adds "an orange striped sweater," which the poem never mentions. The viewer gets a clear picture at once but loses the chance to imagine one.

   • Contrast what you "hear": the friends' warning

     Line 7 reads: "And every one cried, 'You'll all be drowned!'" What does a reader "hear," and what does the video let a viewer hear?

     Result: A reader "hears" the warning in an inner voice. The word "cried" and the exclamation mark suggest it is loud, but the reader decides how it sounds. In the video, "viewers hear a dozen voices shouting at once" (video notes, paragraph 4). The performance turns "every one" into real, many voices, so the warning sounds bigger and noisier than one inner voice can.

   • Compare: what stays the same

     What is alike in reading stanzas I-III and watching the video?

     Result: The notes say "Viewers hear every word of the poem" (video notes, paragraph 1), so a reader and a viewer meet the same words, the same events (the sieve, the storm, the water coming in) and the same rhymes, such as "round" and "drowned" (lines 6-7). Both also meet the refrain, "Far and few, far and few" (line 11), after every stanza. A comparison names these likenesses before turning to differences.

   • Contrast the experience: who controls the pace

     A reader of line 9 can stop at "we don't care a button, we don't care a fig" and read it again. Can a viewer?

     Result: The reader sets the pace: they can slow down, reread a line or look back at an earlier stanza. In the video, "The video never stops or slows down" and "the pictures change every few seconds" (video notes, paragraph 9). The video also adds what a reader must imagine, such as the "howling wind" for "a stormy day" (line 4). So reading is slower and more personal, and watching is faster and fuller of sights and sounds.

   Read it, perform it, compare it. Model three moves for every moment (Diagram 2): quote the words and say what you "see" or "hear" when you read them; describe what the performance lets you see or hear at that moment; then compare (what is the same?) and contrast (what is different, and what does each experience give you?). Sentence frames: "When I read '___' (line __), I pictured ___. In the ___ version, I see/hear ___." and "Both versions ___, but reading lets me ___, while listening/watching lets me ___."

3. Guided Practice15 minutes

   Now the same stanzas as an audio recording, with no pictures at all. Pairs read the recording notes, then fill in Diagram 1 with the class, row by row. Ask each question before revealing the teacher note.

   1Recording notes. This is an imagined audio recording of the first three stanzas of "The Jumblies," made for a children's poetry podcast. It is 1 minute and 50 seconds long, and it has no pictures.

   2Voices. A narrator with a calm, low voice reads the storyteller's lines. A group of children speaks the Jumblies' own words, such as "we don't care a button, we don't care a fig," loudly and cheekily.

   3The friends. The friends' warnings, "You'll all be drowned!" and "Oh! won't they be soon upset, you know?", are spoken by two old, grumbling voices, who sound more cross than frightened.

   4Rhythm. The narrator taps a small drum on the strong beats, so listeners hear the bouncing rhythm of lines like "They sailed away in a sieve, they did."

   5Speed. At "In a sieve they sailed so fast" the narrator speeds up. At "For the sky is dark, and the voyage is long" he slows down and lowers his voice.

   6The refrain. The whole group chants "Far and few, far and few" in a whisper that grows louder, while a ukulele strums underneath.

   7Sounds. In the third stanza, listeners hear water dripping, paper crinkling and a slow, rising whoosh as the sieve spins.

   8What listeners cannot get. Listeners never see the line breaks, the spaces between stanzas or the quotation marks. They can tell who is speaking only from the change of voices.

   1. The rhythm. Read line 15 aloud to yourself: "They sailed away in a sieve, they did." Where are the strong beats? What does the recording do with them (recording notes, paragraph 4)? Teacher note: a reader must find the beat by sounding out the line, silently or aloud. The recording makes it something listeners perceive: "The narrator taps a small drum on the strong beats." The words are the same; the beat moves from the reader's inner ear to a real drum.
   2. Who is speaking? On the page, how do you know that line 8 is the Jumblies speaking? How does a listener know? Teacher note: a reader sees the quotation marks and the words "They called aloud." A listener cannot see any quotation marks (recording notes, paragraph 8). Instead, "A group of children speaks the Jumblies' own words" (paragraph 2), so the change of voices does the job of the quotation marks.
   3. The spinning sieve. Line 38 says the Jumblies go "round in our sieve we spin." Compare all three experiences. Teacher note: the reader imagines the spin; the recording gives listeners a sound, "a slow, rising whoosh" (paragraph 7); the video gives viewers a sight and even a feeling, since the picture spins "so for a few seconds viewers feel dizzy too" (video notes, paragraph 8). All three share the same line of the poem, but each reaches a different sense.

   Each pair then writes three sentences about the recording: one about something that stays the same as in reading, one that contrasts what they "heard" in their heads with what the recording lets them hear, and one about something a listener cannot get from the recording. Each sentence needs a line number from the poem and a quotation from the recording notes.

4. Independent Practice15 minutes

   Students now work on their own with a play. Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949) was a Belgian writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911. The Blue Bird is a fairy play: two poor children, Tyltyl and his little sister Mytyl, are sent by a fairy to search for the Blue Bird of happiness. In this scene in their wood-cutter's cottage, the Fairy gives Tyltyl a green hat with a magic diamond that lets him see the souls (the hidden inner selves) of ordinary things. Read the script first, then the notes on an imagined live production of it.

   Words to know: marvellous (British spelling of marvelous), flints (hard gray stones), sapphires (blue jewels), resplendent (shining and splendid), deal table (a plain table of pine wood), genially (in a friendly way), pendulum (the swinging weight inside a clock), legitimate bewilderment (confusion that makes sense), Quartern-loaves (large loaves of bread), crust-coloured tights (tights the color of bread crust), flurried (flustered), frisk (skip about playfully), hearth (the floor of the fireplace), vermilion (bright red), writhes (twists), simultaneous (at the same time), a trap (a trap door in the stage floor), forthwith (at once), henceforward (from now on), impetuous caresses (sudden, eager hugs and pats). The "..." marks inside the speeches are the play's own; they show pauses.

   1THE FAIRY: He won't see it; no one can see it as long as it's on your head.... Will you try it?... (She puts the little green hat on TYLTYL'S head.) Now, turn the diamond.... One turn and then....

   2(TYLTYL has no sooner turned the diamond than a sudden and wonderful change comes over everything. The old FAIRY alters then and there into a princess of marvellous beauty; the flints of which the cottage walls are built light up, turn blue as sapphires, become transparent and gleam and sparkle like the most precious stones. The humble furniture takes life and becomes resplendent; the deal table assumes as grave and noble an air as a table made of marble; the face of the clock winks its eye and smiles genially, while the door that contains the pendulum opens and releases the Hours, which, holding one another by the hand and laughing merrily, begin to dance to the sound of delicious music.)

   3TYLTYL (displaying a legitimate bewilderment and pointing to the Hours): Who are all those pretty ladies?...

   4THE FAIRY: Don't be afraid; they are the hours of your life and they are glad to be free and visible for a moment....

   5TYLTYL: And why are the walls so bright?... Are they made of sugar or of precious stones?...

   6THE FAIRY: All stones are alike, all stones are precious; but man sees only a few of them....

   7(While they are speaking, the scene of enchantment continues and is completed. The souls of the Quartern-loaves, in the form of little men in crust-coloured tights, flurried and all powdered with flour, scramble out of the bread-pan and frisk round the table, where they are caught up by FIRE, who, springing from the hearth in yellow and vermilion tights, writhes with laughter as he chases the loaves.)

   [...]

   8TYLTYL: And the big red fellow, with the nasty smell?...

   9THE FAIRY: Hush!... Don't speak too loud; that's Fire.... He's dangerous. (This dialogue does not interrupt the enchantment. The DOG and the CAT, lying rolled up at the foot of the cupboard, utter a loud and simultaneous cry and disappear down a trap; and in their places rise two persons, one of whom has the face of a bull-dog, the other that of a tom-cat. Forthwith, the little man with the bull-dog face, whom we will henceforward call the DOG, rushes upon TYLTYL, kisses him violently and overwhelms him with noisy and impetuous caresses; while the little man with the face of a tom-cat, whom we will simply call the CAT, combs his hair, washes his hands and strokes his whiskers before going up to MYTYL.)

   1Director's note. This is an imagined live production of the scene, performed three times on the small stage of a school auditorium. Our stage has no trap door, and we cannot really turn walls into jewels, so some of Maeterlinck's stage directions had to be done in new ways.

   2The diamond. When Tyltyl turns the diamond, the stage lights change in one second from a dim yellow to a bright blue, and a harp plays a quick run of rising notes. The Fairy steps behind a painted screen for three seconds and comes out in a silver gown and a crown. Every night, the audience gasped out loud at the change.

   3The walls. The cottage walls are painted cloth, sewn with hundreds of tiny mirrors. When the blue light hits them, they glitter.

   4The clock and the Hours. The clock has a painted face with one eye that a stagehand flips shut from behind, so the clock seems to wink. Then six dancers in gold dresses step out of the tall clock case, holding hands, and dance in a circle to a waltz. A violinist sitting in the front row plays the music live.

   5The loaves and Fire. Four second graders play the Quartern-loaves, in brown tights, with flour patted on their cheeks. Fire wears red and yellow and waves long orange ribbons. When he chases the loaves around the table, the audience laughs louder than at any other moment in the scene.

   6The Dog and the Cat. With no trap door, the actors playing the Dog and the Cat lie curled up under a blanket at the foot of the cupboard from the start of the scene. When the lights flash, they throw off the blanket and jump up in half-masks, a bulldog and a tomcat. The Dog runs down the steps into the aisle, shaking hands with people in the front row, then leaps back onto the stage to hug Tyltyl. The Cat combs his whiskers with a real comb.

   7What the audience never hears. Our audience never hears the words "legitimate bewilderment" or "whom we will henceforward call the Dog." Those words are written for readers of the script. Instead, our Tyltyl shows his bewilderment with his face: his mouth falls open, his eyes go wide, and he turns slowly in a circle.

   8The smell. The script gives Fire a "nasty smell," but we cannot give the audience a smell. So our Tyltyl holds his nose when he asks about "the big red fellow," and the audience laughs.

   9Every night is different. On the second night, a little boy in the front row barked back at the Dog, and the actor barked at him again. The audience laughed for a long time, and the actors waited for the room to be quiet before they went on. That moment is not in the script, and it did not happen on the other two nights.

   On the handout, students fill in a three-column chart for five moments in the scene (the diamond turns, the walls, the Hours, Fire and the loaves, the Dog and the Cat): What I "saw" and "heard" when I read it, What the audience sees and hears, Same or different? Then they write two sentences: one that compares reading the scene with watching it, and one that contrasts them. The quiz uses this scene and these notes, so do not discuss answers until students have finished the chart.

5. Closure5 minutes

   Exit ticket: (1) Name one thing you could only "hear" in your head when you read "The Jumblies" but could really hear in the recording. (2) Name one thing a reader of the poem can see that a listener never can.

   Teacher note on language and content: the texts are kept exactly as published, including British spellings ("colour," "traveller"), older hyphenated words ("to-day") and Kipling's playful misspellings ("hurtig be" for "hurting me," "hijjus" for "hideous"). In "The Elephant's Child," the young elephant's relatives spank him for asking so many questions, a common punishment when Kipling wrote; a class may want to talk about how that has changed. The Crocodile tries to eat the Elephant's Child, but the scene is comic and no one is hurt for long. In The Blue Bird, the Fairy warns that Fire is "dangerous"; nothing dangerous happens in the excerpt.

   For homework: students read part of a story and notes on an imagined audiobook of it, printed below. Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was a British writer born in India. His Just So Stories (1902) began as bedtime stories he told his own children, and the narrator talks straight to the listener, calling them "O Best Beloved." In "The Elephant's Child," a young elephant, back when elephants had short noses, is so curious that he walks all the way to the Limpopo River in Africa to ask the Crocodile what he eats for dinner. Words to know: come hither (come here), crocodile-tears (fake tears), musky, tusky (strong-smelling and toothy), haunches (hips and back legs), floundered (splashed about clumsily), threshed (thrashed), hijjus (hideous, here meaning terribly), butch (much, said through a squeezed nose), double-clove-hitch (a kind of knot), high tension (hard pulling), yonder (that, over there), self-propelling man-of-war with the armour-plated upper deck (a warship that moves by itself and has a metal-covered top: the Python's grand way of describing the Crocodile), vitiate (spoil or ruin). The Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake is a two-colored python who lives on a rock.

   1But it was really the Crocodile, O Best Beloved, and the Crocodile winked one eye--like this!

   [...]

   2Then the Crocodile winked the other eye, and lifted half his tail out of the mud; and the Elephant’s Child stepped back most politely, because he did not wish to be spanked again.

   3‘Come hither, Little One,’ said the Crocodile. ‘Why do you ask such things?’

   [...]

   4‘Come hither, Little One,’ said the Crocodile, ‘for I am the Crocodile,’ and he wept crocodile-tears to show it was quite true.

   [...]

   5‘Come hither, Little One,’ said the Crocodile, ‘and I’ll whisper.’

   6Then the Elephant’s Child put his head down close to the Crocodile’s musky, tusky mouth, and the Crocodile caught him by his little nose, which up to that very week, day, hour, and minute, had been no bigger than a boot, though much more useful.

   7‘I think, said the Crocodile--and he said it between his teeth, like this--‘I think to-day I will begin with Elephant’s Child!’

   8At this, O Best Beloved, the Elephant’s Child was much annoyed, and he said, speaking through his nose, like this, ‘Led go! You are hurtig be!’

   [...]

   9Then the Elephant’s Child sat back on his little haunches, and pulled, and pulled, and pulled, and his nose began to stretch. And the Crocodile floundered into the water, making it all creamy with great sweeps of his tail, and he pulled, and pulled, and pulled.

   10And the Elephant’s Child’s nose kept on stretching; and the Elephant’s Child spread all his little four legs and pulled, and pulled, and pulled, and his nose kept on stretching; and the Crocodile threshed his tail like an oar, and he pulled, and pulled, and pulled, and at each pull the Elephant’s Child’s nose grew longer and longer--and it hurt him hijjus!

   11Then the Elephant’s Child felt his legs slipping, and he said through his nose, which was now nearly five feet long, ‘This is too butch for be!’

   12Then the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake came down from the bank, and knotted himself in a double-clove-hitch round the Elephant’s Child’s hind legs, and said, ‘Rash and inexperienced traveller, we will now seriously devote ourselves to a little high tension, because if we do not, it is my impression that yonder self-propelling man-of-war with the armour-plated upper deck’ (and by this, O Best Beloved, he meant the Crocodile), ‘will permanently vitiate your future career.

   13That is the way all Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakes always talk.

   14So he pulled, and the Elephant’s Child pulled, and the Crocodile pulled; but the Elephant’s Child and the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake pulled hardest; and at last the Crocodile let go of the Elephant’s Child’s nose with a plop that you could hear all up and down the Limpopo.

   1Recording notes. This is an imagined audiobook recording of "The Elephant's Child," read by one actor, with a few sound effects. The part of the story printed above takes 3 minutes and 40 seconds to hear.

   2The storyteller's voice. The reader speaks warmly and a little slowly, like a grandparent telling a bedtime story. Each time the story says "O Best Beloved," she lowers her voice, as if she were talking to one child sitting close beside her.

   3"Like this!" When the Crocodile winks "like this!", the reader makes a soft clicking sound with her tongue and gives a small laugh. Listeners do not see a wink. They hear that the storyteller is acting one out.

   4Four voices. The reader uses four voices: her own warm voice for the narrator, a small, polite, eager voice for the Elephant's Child, a slow, oily whisper for the Crocodile, and a grand, deep voice for the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake.

   5Between his teeth. For the Crocodile's words "I think to-day I will begin with Elephant's Child!" she clenches her teeth, so the words come out as a hiss.

   6The nose voice. For "Led go! You are hurtig be!" she pinches her nose and reads the words exactly as Kipling spelled them. Through her pinched nose, they sound like a child with a bad cold trying to say "Let go! You are hurting me!"

   7The pulling. Each time the story says "pulled," a drum beats once. The beats get faster and louder as the nose stretches, and behind the drum, listeners hear water splashing.

   8The plop. The tug-of-war ends with a loud, wet "plop" sound effect, then two seconds of silence before the reader goes on.

   9The Python's speech. The reader says the Python's long words in one grand breath, without stopping. For the words in parentheses, "(and by this, O Best Beloved, he meant the Crocodile)," she switches to her storyteller's voice for a moment, then goes back to the Python's deep voice. The recording does not stop to explain what "vitiate" means.

Differentiation Strategies

Assessment Guidance

1. Question 1 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   RL.6.7 asks students to contrast what they "see" and "hear" when reading with what they perceive in a performance. What do the quotation marks around "see" and "hear" suggest?

   AA reader sees and hears only in the imagination BA reader should read the text aloud so that other people can hear it CA reader should look at the pictures in the book before reading the words DA reader sees and hears exactly what the author saw and heard

2. Question 2 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In the script, how does a reader find out that the Fairy turns into a princess?

   ATyltyl says so when he asks who the pretty ladies are BThe Fairy announces it to the children before she changes CA stage direction in italics describes the change (paragraph 2) DThe narrator of the play tells it to the reader in paragraph 1

3. Question 3 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In the live production, how does the audience perceive that the Fairy has changed?

   AThey read the stage direction that is printed in their programs for the show BThey see her step behind a screen and come out in a gown and crown CThey hear Tyltyl explain the whole change to his little sister DThey hear an announcer read the stage direction out loud from the wings

4. Question 4 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Which words from the script does the audience of the live production never hear?

   A"Who are all those pretty ladies?" B"Don't be afraid; they are the hours of your life" C"And the big red fellow, with the nasty smell?" D"whom we will henceforward call the Dog"

5. Question 5 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   The script says the cottage walls "turn blue as sapphires, become transparent and gleam and sparkle like the most precious stones" (paragraph 2). What does the live audience actually see?

   AReal stone walls that slowly turn into clear glass as they watch BPainted cloth sewn with tiny mirrors that glitter in blue light CAn empty stage while one of the actors describes the walls aloud DA film of sparkling jewels shown on a big screen behind the actors

6. Question 6 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Which part of the experience is the same for a reader of the script and the live audience?

   ABoth learn that the dancing ladies are the Hours from the Fairy's words BBoth see the Cat comb his whiskers with a real comb CBoth hear the harp play a quick run of rising notes DBoth are told the word "bewilderment" to describe Tyltyl

7. Question 7 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   The script gives Fire a "nasty smell" (paragraph 8). How does the production deal with something an audience cannot perceive?

   AIt cuts the line, so the smell is never mentioned at all BIt sprays a smell into the auditorium when Fire appears CTyltyl holds his nose as he asks about the big red fellow DThe Fairy explains to the audience that Fire smells of smoke

8. Question 8 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Which experience could happen only in a live version of the play?

   AReading the stage direction about the Hours dancing in a circle BA little boy barks at the Dog, and the actor barks back at him CHearing the Fairy say that Fire is dangerous DImagining the souls of the loaves in crust-coloured tights

9. Question 9 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   The script says the Hours "begin to dance to the sound of delicious music" (paragraph 2). What does the audience hear at that moment?

   AOnly the actors' feet on the stage, since no music is named BThe Fairy singing a song about the hours of Tyltyl's life CA recording of wind and rain from the storm outside DA waltz played live by a violinist in the front row

10. Question 10 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    How does the production handle the stage direction that the Dog and the Cat "disappear down a trap" (paragraph 9)?

    AThe actors hide under a blanket and jump up when the lights flash BThe actors drop through a trap door and climb back up wearing masks CThe Dog and the Cat are left out, and Tyltyl describes them in words DTwo real animals run off the stage while actors run on

11. Question 11 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Why might the live audience understand Tyltyl's "legitimate bewilderment" (paragraph 3) faster than a reader?

    AThe audience is told the meaning of the word before the play starts BThe audience sees his open mouth and wide eyes as he turns CThe audience hears the Fairy say that Tyltyl is confused DThe audience can stop the play and ask what the word means

12. Question 12 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    When a reader reaches the stage direction about Fire (paragraph 7), what must the reader do that the live audience does not have to do?

    AListen for the sound of the violin playing the waltz BWatch the actor playing Fire wave his long orange ribbons CLaugh along with the rest of the audience in the auditorium DPicture Fire's tights and laughter from the words alone

13. Question 13 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Which statement is true of both reading the scene and watching the live production?

    ABoth let you see Fire's long orange ribbons as he moves BBoth let you learn from the Fairy that Fire is dangerous CBoth show you the stage direction that says the table becomes noble DBoth let you see the Fairy's silver gown and crown

14. Question 14 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Which is an advantage that reading a play script has over watching a live production?

    AThe reader hears the actors' real voices and their tone BThe reader can see the costumes, the set and the lighting CThe reader can reread any stage direction as often as needed DThe reader shares the whole experience with a laughing audience

15. Question 15 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    A student says, "When I read a poem silently, I don't hear anything, so reading and listening can't be compared." Which answer best responds to the student?

    AThe student is right: only a recording has sound, so the two cannot be compared BThe student should always read poems aloud instead of silently CSilent readers never notice rhyme or rhythm, so there is nothing to compare DSilent readers still "hear" words, rhymes and beats in an inner voice

16. Question 16 of 20 · Short Answer

    In 2-3 sentences, contrast what a reader "sees" when the souls of the Quartern-loaves appear (paragraph 7) with what the live audience sees (production notes, paragraph 5).

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17. Question 17 of 20 · Short Answer

    Which experience do you think makes the Dog's entrance funnier, reading the script or watching the live production? Answer in 2-3 sentences with evidence from both texts.

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18. Question 18 of 20 · Short Answer

    Give one way reading the Hours moment (paragraphs 2-4) is like watching it, and one way it is different. Use the script and the production notes.

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19. Question 19 of 20 · Short Answer

    Choose one stage direction from the script that a live audience could never perceive exactly as it is written. Quote it and explain why in 2-3 sentences.

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20. Question 20 of 20 · Short Answer

    In 2-3 sentences, explain why RL.6.7 asks you to compare reading and watching, and not only to contrast them.

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These standards connect to RL.6.7: prerequisites to review first, parallel standards at the same level, and next steps that build on it.

Standard text: Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy. © Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved.