Jason+Langlois'+Lesson+Plan+-+Fall+2009

Personal Technology Project: Lesson Plan

LESSON OBJECTIVE: Students will demonstrate their understanding of theatrical set design by designing a scaled set for the show of their choosing and presenting the design via the Google Sketchup program.

This lesson plan would ideally be the lesson during which the culminating project for a unit on theatrical set design would be explained.


 * 1) Hook: Break the students into small groups and give them some toothpicks, paperclips, paper and glue and assign them to create a mini-set for the Ant Shakespeare Festival
 * 2) Students will be given a supply bag filled with a set of 50 toothpicks, scotch tape, a 3x5 index card and glue.
 * 3) Each group of students will be given 15 minute to create a miniature set to be used for the “Ant Shakespeare Festival”.
 * 4) The requirements:
 * 5) Students may only use the materials included in the bag of supplies
 * 6) Students may only work within the designated 15-minute time limit
 * 7) The miniature sets may not exceed the dimensions of the 3x5 index card.
 * 8) This activity is not meant to be an accurate set design necessarily but is intended to get students thinking about set design and creating designs in miniature.
 * 9) Once the 15 minutes have passed each group will be given 1-minute to present their mini-designs.
 * 10) Instruction: drawing a set to scale
 * 11) Some important notes about scaling a design:
 * 12) Be sure to use a consistent scale throughout (ex ¼ inch, ½ inch etc.)
 * 13) Measure twice, cut once (besure to double and triple check all math before beginning to draft)
 * 14) Have a sheet including the actual dimensions and their scaled conversions to ensure accuracy
 * 15) Activity: each student draws a simple house to a certain scale given its actual dimensions
 * 16) Give each student a sheet of graph paper and a scale-rule.
 * 17) Provide the dimensions for any actual building (the example used is the house, but it could be an apartment, a classroom, a school building or any other building whose dimensions are easily available to the teacher)
 * 18) Students will turn in this scaled drawing at the end of the period for participation points for the day.
 * 19) Final Assignment
 * 20) The students will be selecting a play of their choice which they will read and then proceed to design a set for. The play can be any play of their choosing provided the content is appropriate for a secondary education setting.
 * 21) The first phase of the project is to select the play they will design for, read it, and submit a 1-page analysis/personal reaction to the play.
 * 22) Students will then begin to create their designs. They must come up with a design concept for the set which will be turned in as the second phase of the project.
 * 23) The third phase will be a scaled floorplan layout of the set on drafting paper. The set will be designed following the dimensions of BYU’s Margett’s Black Box theatre. This scaled floor-plan must include:
 * 24) A key indicating the scale used
 * 25) Audience seating in relation to the set
 * 26) Entrance and exit points for both audience and actors
 * 27) The final phase of the project is to create a Google Sketchup file of the final set design in 3D. Students will present their designs via Google Sketchup as if presenting to a board of collaborators. The presentation should include:
 * 28) The title of the show being designed
 * 29) At least 10 animated scenes displaying the set from all possible angles
 * 30) Color suggestions for set dressings
 * 31) Any important large scale set pieces (refrigerators, tables, doors, chairs, etc)
 * 32) A list of building materials proposed for building the set (What types of wood? Metal? Construction methods?)
 * 33) A proposed approximate budget for building the set including the crew required to create it.
 * 34) Students will be graded on their effective use of Google Sketchup as a tool to create a presentation of a set design and how well they pitch their designs.

Since Google Sketchup files cannot be embedded into the Wiki pages I have posted some screen-shots of my set design I created as an example of a final project using Sketchup:

FRONT VIEW



TOP VIEW

FRONT/ANGLE VIEW

BACK/ANGLE VIEW