Summary

This play involves all of the Hidden Villa goals. The events in the play reinforce the understanding of basic ecological concepts in both students and audience members. In giving the animals a voice, this play also increases students' sense of compassion towards the plight of animals whose habitat is affected by human actions. The final effort of the animals to ban together and inform the Smith Family about how their actions are affecting the ecosystem emphasizes the importance of humans taking responsibility for their impact on the environment and offers some concrete information to help students and audience members make ecologically responsible choices in their own lives. Finally, participation in a play greatly supports the development of students' self-confidence.

Plays are a great way to engage other learning modalities in the study of academic content areas. In this case, by becoming the animals in an ecosystem under stress, many students can use their imaginations and emotional connection to their characters to enrich their understanding of the ecological concepts. Additionally, I wrote the play to enrich my students' vocabulary, since performing a play requires repeated readings of the text to truly understand what one is saying. Since to perform a play you must read and reread the text many times over and truly understand what you are saying, this seemed the perfect opportunity to plant some new words that would enrich my students vocabulary. To produce this entire play takes an investment of time. My students' enthusiasm for Hidden Villa helped them maintain their excitement about the project all the way through to the end. This was a fabulous way to do something a bit different and fun after the craziness of standardized testing. It maintained my students' engagement with important state standards all the way to the end of the school year.

Part I: Food Chain Study in an English-Only Classroom

Scene I is written entirely in English and focuses on the cyclical nature of a food chain in the oak woodlands at Hidden Villa. It is a short scene that could be used to support student understanding of food chains.

Part II: Food Chain Study in a Bilingual (Spanish/English) Classroom

Act I contains three different scenes that are all meant to be comical dramatizations of different food chains at Hidden Villa. One scene is all in English, one all in Spanish, and one is in both languages.

Part III: Different Levels of Commitment

In its entirety, this can be considered a full-length play for the elementary school level. There are many different ways that it could be used in the classroom, though, with a range of class time commitment.

Lesson Plans

Part I: Food Chain Study in an English-Only Classroom

Scene I is written entirely in English and focuses on the cyclical nature of a food chain in the oak woodlands at Hidden Villa. It is a short scene that could be used to support student understanding of food chains.

Lesson Options:

• Copy the scene on overhead transparencies for the entire class to read. This could become a week-long Shared Reading to support your life science lessons.
• Or, for a one-day lesson: 1) Read the entire scene through together as a class 2) Divide the class into 6 different groups 3) Read through the scene several times together with each group taking on role of one character
• Or, divide the class into groups of 5 to 6. Have each student choose a character and read through the scene several times as a group
• After reading through the scene you could have students: 1) Make a representational drawing of the scene. 2) Use the scene as an example of writing a play and write their own based on a different food chain at Hidden Villa. 3) Have a groups take turns to get up and act out the scene
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Part II: Food Chain Study in a Bilingual (Spanish/English) Classroom

Act I contains three different scenes that are all meant to be comical dramatizations of different food chains at Hidden Villa. One scene is all in English, one all in Spanish, and one is in both languages.

Lesson Options:

• There are a total of 19 roles in all in the first 3 scenes. If you have a small class, you could break your students into groups and have each work on reading, understanding, practicing and performing one of the scenes for the rest of the class. You can accomplish this in a couple of days, if you just want students to do dramatic readings; or in a couple of weeks (or longer) if you want students to memorize their lines, learn stage directions, and perform Act I for another class.
• Act I could also be put together by a smaller group of 4 to 6 students. In this case you could have one of your reading groups work on reading comprehension, vocabulary expansion and reading fluency by using this text for their literature study. They could then find a simple way to present the scenes to the class.
• As in the suggestions for Scene I, after reading through the scenes you could have students: 1) Make a representational drawing of the scene. 2) Use the scene as an example of writing a play and write their own based on a different food chain at Hidden Villa. 3) Have a groups take turns to get up and act out the scene
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Part III: Different Levels of Commitment

In its entirety, this can be considered a full-length play for the elementary school level. There are many different ways that it could be used in the classroom, though, with a range of class time commitment.

Lesson Options:

• You could use the play in its entirety as the text for the literacy group in your class whose reading level it best fits. Students can read, respond to and discuss the play as they would with other texts.
• Share the play out loud as a long read-aloud. You could either take on the role of each character yourself, or ask for volunteers each day to help you.
• Produce the entire play in some way or another. (I wrote the play with my class size in mind, therefore there are enough parts for a class of 28 to each have at least 2 major roles. Based on my experience, however, I recommend that you assign scenes to different groups of 5-6 students rather than character roles to students.) Choose students who you think can work well together and assign them 2 - 3 scenes. As the number of characters are not the same in every scene, it may turn out that a group has one too many or one too few actors. This is fine - narrator lines can be broken up between more students, or students playing characters in one part of the scene can double as narrators in others. Also, a student who takes on a really involved role in one scene can sit out in another. When their group is practicing a scene they don't have a role in, these students can act as coaches. This way of assigning roles makes producing the play thousands of times easier than assigning separate roles to individual students. In this way students can always take advantage of the full block of time to practice, instead of waiting around for a certain students who might be in a different scene.
• Videos are optional, and in no way necessary.( As part of our other Hidden Villa integrated units we studied many of these topics. It was easy at the end of each topic to produce a very short [1-2 minutes] iMovie.) They could include simple student interviews, a student reading his or her essay or student reenactments.
• If you produce the entire play for performance, I recommend that your present it in two parts, Acts I and II together, and Act III. Have a break (such as recess or lunch) between the parts, or perform them on separate days.

Please Note: If the play is too long for your purposes, edit lines, remove scenes and make creative arrangements to fit your class's needs.

Download Materials

Part I: Food Chain Study in an English-Only Classroom

Eco-Play Scene 1 

Part II: Food Chain Study in a Bilingual (Spanish/English) Classroom

Eco-Play Act I

Part III: Different Levels of Commitment

Eco-Play