Gathering Blue, and the Ways in Which Different Characters Have Power Over Each Other
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TEACHER RESOURCE GUIDE April 30-May 17, 2013 Winningstad Theatre 2012-2013 1111 SW Broadway Inside this guide ABOUT: The Show, Author, and Playwright; The Big Ideas ........2 Oregon Educational Standards .................................3 Discussion and Writing Prompts................................4 Interview with playwright Eric Coble............................5 Activities 1. Who Has the Power? — Discuss and diagram the kinds of power and influence in Gathering Blue, and the ways in which different characters have power over each other. ..........6 2. Creating the Future — Use current events connected to your social sciences curriculum as ways for students to think about ways that the arts can inspire social change. Students brainstorm artistic responses to issues, and if time, design a poster campaign. ......7 3. The Singer’s Robe — How do symbols, colors, and patterns tell stories? Students create a square that visually expresses their identity, history, or a story about themselves. Then put the squares together to create a visual history of your class................8 4. Laws of the Village — What kind of government controls Kira’s Teacher Info & Important Dates world? How is the village run? Students work in small groups to Friday, March 15, 2013: Full balance due, create new laws and reforms that they think will make the village last day to reduce seats a more pleasant place for its citizens to live. ..................9 Friday, April 26, 7pm: Teacher preview Reading List and Online Resources ............................10 Length: 75 minutes OCT School Services .........................................12 Location: Winningstad Theatre Based on the book Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry. Adapted by Eric Coble. Co-commissioned with First Stage Children’s Theatre (Milwaukee, WI). Directed by Stan Foote. Teacher resource guide by Allison Davis. 1 About The Big Ideas • It is important to use compassion and empathy to look The Show beyond surfaces and appearances. athering Blue, the second book in Lois Lowry’s Giver quartet, • One way to evaluate a society is to examine how it treats G introduces a future dominated by raw human needs and a those who are disadvantaged. massive gulf between those with power and those without. Kira’s leg is twisted and useless—but she is an exceptional weaver. Her • Being different or an outsider can offer a unique and mother has died, leaving her weak and alone in a village that takes special perspective. pity on no one. She is captured by the Council of Guardians to • Cultures use the arts to tell stories, preserve their weave the Singer’s Robe, a precious ceremonial garment depict- history, and articulate their values and ways of life. ing the Council’s version of the history of their world. Her job brings her closer to the inner circle of her repressive government • The arts can be used to enhance our compassion, our and its horrifying secrets. As she weaves the story of the past, humanity, and to create change in our society. can she use her knowledge to help shape the future?. Gathering Blue is the third world premiere collaboration between Oregon Children’s Theatre and Lois Lowry, and continues our mis- sion of new play development The Author, Lois Lowry Lois Lowry is a preeminent voice in contemporary children’s lit- erature, with a canon of more than thirty books for readers of all ages, including the Newbery Medal recipients Number the Stars and The Giver. She has received countless honors, among them the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award, the California Young Reader Medal, the Mark Twain Award, and the Margaret A. Edwards Award, which honors an author for their lifetime contribution to young adult literature. Ms. Lowry now divides her time between Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a 1768 farmhouse in Maine. The Playwright, Eric Coble Eric Coble was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and raised on the Navajo and Ute reservations in New Mexico and Colorado. His plays include The Giver, The Storm in the Barn, Bright Ideas, Natural Selection and For Better, and have been produced Off-Broadway, throughout the U.S., and on several continents. Awards include an Emmy nomination, the AT&T Onstage Award, National Theatre Conference Playwriting Award, an NEA Playwright in Residence Grant, a TCG Extended Collaboration Grant, the Cleveland Arts Prize, and three Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Grants. 2 Oregon Educational Standards Arts: Create, Present, Perform Social Sciences: Social Science Analysis: Design and implement AR.05.CP.01, AR.08.CP.01 Create, present and perform works strategies…to analyze issues, explain perspectives and of art. resolve issues using the social sciences. AR.05.CP.02, AR.08.CP.02 Apply the use of ideas, technique 5.23 Identify characteristics of an event, issue or problem, and problem solving to the creative process and analyze the suggesting possible causes and results. influence that choices have on the result. 6.22 Gather, interpret, document and use information from AR.05.CP.03, AR.08.CP.03 Express ideas, moods, and feelings multiple sources, distinguishing facts from opinions, and rec- through the arts and evaluate how well a work of art expresses ognizing points of view. one’s intent. 7.25 Analyze evidence from multiple sources. AR.05.CP.04, AR.08.CP.04 Evaluate one’s own work, orally and 8.26 Examine a controversial event, issue or problem from in writing. more than one perspective. 8.27 Examine the various characteristics, causes and effects Language Arts: Literature: Key Ideas and Details of an event, issue or problem. 6.RL.2—8.RL.2 Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development. 4.RL.3—7.RL.3 Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text. Social Sciences: Civics and Government: Understand and apply knowledge about governmental and political systems, and the rights and responsibilities of citizens. 5.13 Describe and summarize how colonial and new states’ governments affected groups within their population. 5.14 Compare and contrast tribal forms of government, mon- archy, and early American colonial governments. 6.17 Compare and contrast early forms of government via the study of ancient civilizations. 7.16 Describe the role of citizens in various governments in the Eastern Hemisphere. 7.17 Compare and contrast early forms of government via the study of early civilizations in the Eastern Hemisphere. 8.14 Explain rights and responsibilities of citizens. 8.21 Analyze important political and ethical values such as freedom, democracy, equality, and justice. 3 Discussion Questions & Writing Prompts 1. Why do you think Katrina has the courage to stand up to the 16. After meeting her father, why does Kira choose to stay in her villagers and save Kira when she’s born? village? Would you have made the same choice? 2. When Kira is orphaned, she is threatened with death by 17. How do you think Kira will change her village? How do you Vandara and brought before the Council of Guardians to plead think she will create these changes? Make some predictions her case. Describe the strength that she displays in front of about what will happen after Gathering Blue ends. the Council. Are there other times in Gathering Blue in which she acts strong or courageous? Explain. Writing Prompts 3. How do the villagers treat their children? How is this different 1. Write a letter from Kira to her father, or from her father to Kira, from Kira’s upbringing? that is set after the end of Gathering Blue. 4. How is Kira an outsider in her society? Do you think that there 2. Write a description of what you think the Guardians want Kira are good things about being an outsider? Explain. to weave into the Singer’s Robe. Be specific. Next, write a 5. Describe Matt and Kira’s relationship. How do they help each description of what kind of design Kira might weave. How are other? What does each person offer the other? these visions different? 6. Why do you think Annabella tells Kira that there are no 3. Imagine that five years have passed since the end of Gathering beasts? When Kira asks Jamison about this, how does he Blue. Make some predictions about what has happened to respond? Do you think that incident is connected to Kira, Matt, Thomas and Jo over those years. Annabella’s death? 4. What art form would you choose to use to tell your own 7. Compare and contrast the differences between the ways that history or story, and why? the villagers live and the Guardians live. What does this tell 5. Look up the definition of ‘dystopia.’ Do you think Gathering you about this society? Blue meets the criteria for a dystopian society? Support 8. How do the Guardians treat Kira? At what point in the story your answers. does Kira realize she isn’t really free? What do you think is the 6. Do readers ever find out what happened during the Ruin? List definition of freedom? what you do know from the book. Next, research an ancient 9. What do Kira, Thomas, and Jo all have in common? What are civilization on the internet or at the library: the Maya, the the Guardians trying to get them to do? Aztec, the Ottoman Empire, the Celts, etc. and write about how they lived and whether or not that ancient culture 10. Kira refers to blue as the color of freedom. What do you think experienced some kind of catastrophe like a Ruin. blue represents in the play? Is it significant that it’s missing from Kira’s world? Explain. 7. Gathering Blue is a novel written from Kira’s perspective that contains her inner monologue.