On Thursday, 23rd March MYP2 presented their summative assessment for English. We had been reading a book in script form called “Charley’s Aunt” by Brandon Thomas. After thoroughly understanding the book, analysing the characters and grasping concepts that we believe the author wishes to communicate, we separated into groups and re-enacted different scenes from the script. The inquiry question for this unit was “Can we communicate ideas and concepts through plays?”. The main concept emphasised on was Communication. Through the different scenes chosen by the groups we targeted some of the concepts and tried to convey these through our skits. The students were asked to focus on the aspect of how miscommunication, misunderstandings, and/or mistaken identities create a humorous effect.
Charley’s Aunt, a short comedic play, is about two undergraduates (Jack and Charley) who want to propose to their sweethearts. They decide to invite them to lunch, as Charley’s Aunt is coming from Brazil and she will be their chaperone. Later, when Charley’s Aunt sends a telegraph that she cannot make it, Jack and Charley need a quick solution. They force their friend, Lord Fancourt, to personate Charley’s Aunt. All goes well until Charley’s real aunt arrives with the intention to surprise Charley and there is a farrago of who is the real aunt. The truth is eventually disclosed and all involved in the deception are forgiven.
Throughout this project, there was a lot of learning, fun and collaboration. All of the teams worked together extremely well and always had each other’s backs. This task not only encouraged the class to work together but also helped in making stronger bonds and recognizing each other’s strengths and weaknesses.
A few important skills that we used are: collaboration skills in the groups, communication skills, while performing and communicating ideas clearly, organization skills, while making sure the play runs well without any mistakes and self/time management skills to get enough practises and memorise lines in time.
The learner profiles that were mainly targeted are: Communicators; while presenting our skit, Risk-Takers; as most of us had never acted before and needed to present it, Open-Minded; while considering everyone thoughts, opinions and ideas and Caring; by helping out our teammates and making sure they did not face difficulties.
Overall this was a great learning experience. Although preparing the script and memorizing our lines was part of our regular lessons, it has been a new form of learning and has been quite effective. The humour in this play makes it very enjoyable to re-enact and we hope to get another opportunity like this.
Prisha Kapoor MYP2 A
