Customer Reviews

Shoes on the Highway: Using Visual and Audio Cues to Inspire Student Playwrights

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A veteran high school teacher provides intriguing and carefully developed exercises to inspire high school students in developing skills in playwriting. Maureen Brady Johnson's expertise in sparking student creativity is evidenced not only by the inspired exercises she's developed, but by the samples of student writings she includes. Starting with photographs of shoes abandoned on highways--which can be used as the starting point for monologues--Johnson nurtures her students as they develop monologues, then dialogues, then increasingly complex and sophisticated theatrical pieces. This is a book for all who work with creative writing workshops and courses--and for all who aspire to write themselves. The exercises are clearly and fully explained--and, to this university theatre professor, pedagogically sound. Highly recommended.

Oh, what a different sort of guide to teaching playwriting! The author (and playwright and teacher) is clearly an expert at sharing the tools needed to write a stageworthy play. And she makes it fun, lots of fun. Like the best writers and teachers everywhere, Maureen Brady Johnson takes the everyday and makes it new -- whether it's a rock on a college campus where students paint (and repaint) messages, Halloween vampire teeth, or a shoe on the highway. Lessons are clearly described along with their objectives. Teachers and writers alike will soon find their copy of this book (like mine) dog-eared from use!