Between the Scenes
An original short play about a science fair, a shaky water filter, and a data board with no place for 'sometimes' — where the drama's FORM does the storytelling: soliloquies carry the truth, asides carry the subtext, stage directions carry what dialogue hides, and the scene break holds the decision. Students map what each formal feature does that ordinary dialogue can't.
Common Core standards covered
© Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved.
Teacher-facing overview
Big idea: Analyze how a drama's form or structure — soliloquy, aside, stage directions, scene divisions — contributes to its meaning.
Student target: “I can identify a drama's formal features — soliloquy, aside, stage directions, scene divisions — and analyze what each contributes to the play's meaning, testing my claims by transplanting lines between forms.”
Success criteria: I can chart the play's three channels: who hears dialogue, asides, and soliloquies. · I can quote a formal feature and name the work it does that dialogue can't. · I can explain what the scene break withholds and why. · I can run the transplant test and describe what breaks.
Essential question
A story can just tell you a character's secret. A play has to SHOW people talking — so drama invented forms that break its own rule: the soliloquy, the aside, the silent stage direction. What does each form carry that dialogue can't hold?
Learning target: I can identify a drama's formal features — soliloquy, aside, stage directions, scene divisions — and analyze what each contributes to the play's meaning, testing my claims by transplanting lines between forms.
Success criteria
- I can chart the play's three channels: who hears dialogue, asides, and soliloquies.
- I can quote a formal feature and name the work it does that dialogue can't.
- I can explain what the scene break withholds and why.
- I can run the transplant test and describe what breaks.
Why this matters
RL.7.5 asks what a drama's FORM contributes to meaning — a question invisible until students see forms doing work prose can't. This play is a controlled demonstration: three channels of speech with three different audiences (everyone / us only / no one but us), stage directions carrying the climax in silence, a scene break that withholds preparation, and a truth that migrates across forms — private soliloquy to pressured aside to public confession — so that the protagonist's arc is literally legible in which FORM her words take. The transplant test (move a line between channels; watch the play break) gives students a falsifiable method for every drama they'll ever read, including the Shakespeare waiting in high school, where soliloquy and aside carry entire plays.
Students should already be able to
- Reading a script's conventions (speaker labels, parentheses).
- Dramatic irony, informally (the audience knowing more).
- Citing by paragraph number.
Where this shows up outside the classroom
Assessment plan
Formative — for feedback during the lesson
- Warm-up — the private-channel convention recognized from TV.
- Chart check — climax sorted into the silent channel.
- Ledger circulation — contributions in can't-do-otherwise form.
Summative — the graded evidence: Exit ticket (feature + contribution + transplant verdict) plus the completed ledger; the missing soliloquy and cut-scene rank as extension evidence.
The passage: “The Partial Result — a short play”
An original short play written for this lesson (≈700 words). The form glossary in ¶1 is part of the text — the play teaches its own conventions.
¶1 THE PARTIAL RESULT — a short play. CHARACTERS: NORA, 13, builder of things. JULES, 13, her lab partner, better at talking than soldering. A JUDGE. The setting is a school gym on science fair morning, folding tables in rows. A note on form: in a SOLILOQUY, a character alone on stage speaks their true thoughts to the audience. In an ASIDE, marked (aside), a character speaks one line the other characters cannot hear. Everything else, everyone hears.
¶2 SCENE ONE. Early. The gym is empty except for NORA, setting up a model water filter — tubes, gravel, sand, a battered pump. A droplet lands. She catches it with a paper towel, and looks at the pump for a long moment.
🔒 The full text — 8 numbered paragraphs, plus the photocopy-ready handout — ships in the kit. See plans →
The task students work on
The class reads the play aloud in parts — including a voice for stage directions — then charts the three channels: who hears what. Teams build the form ledger: each feature (soliloquy, aside, stage direction, scene break, the echoed line) quoted and cited, with the work it does that dialogue can't. The transplant test closes it: relocate one soliloquy line into open dialogue and describe precisely what breaks. Cite by ¶ throughout.
The form ledger — feature, evidence, and the work dialogue can't do.
| Form feature | Where (quoted, ¶) | Who receives it | What it contributes that dialogue can't |
|---|---|---|---|
| Soliloquy | |||
| Aside | |||
| Stage direction | |||
| Scene break | |||
| The echoed line (¶3 → ¶6) |
Anticipated student strategies
Channel charting first because everything else reads off the chart. Truth tracking second — it turns the chart into the play's arc. Transplant testing last, as proof that the forms are load-bearing.
- Channel charting. The student sorts every line by who hears it — all, audience-only-mid-scene, audience-only-alone — before analyzing anything.
The intended entry: the three-channel chart makes the form architecture visible in one pass. Share first.
🔒 2 more anticipated strategies with select-and-sequence guidance are in the full lesson. See plans →
Lesson script
Collect: we learn secrets, we get jokes, we know more than the other characters, we take sides. Name the inheritance: TV's talking-to-camera is drama's oldest tech — the aside and the soliloquy, invented centuries ago because plays can't write 'she thought.' Today's play uses the whole toolkit, and our job is to catch each form doing what dialogue can't.
Listen for: The secret dies, the irony dies, our special status dies — which is precisely the transplant test we'll run later, named before we need it.
The play is in the workbook and the handout, with its form glossary built into ¶1. After the read, build the chart on the board. The discovery it produces: the play's most important information almost never travels in the public channel — the filter's real record (soliloquy), the partnership's imbalance (aside), the climax (stage-direction pause), the verdict (withheld entirely). Dialogue, the channel everything supposedly runs on, mostly carries performance — Jules's pitch, the deal, the donuts.
- Three channels, three audiences.
- Stage directions are a voice — cast them like one.
Listen for: The two-out-of-nine record — we carry Nora's secret through every public line, which makes ¶4's cheerful scene squirm. The soliloquy built that; this is dramatic irony as a FORM effect.
🔒 The remaining 4 steps — fully scripted with teacher-says lines, discourse questions, look-fors, and interventions — are in the full lesson. See plans →
Misconceptions and how to respond
- “Stage directions are instructions for actors, not part of the story.” This play's climax is '(A pause. JULES looks at NORA. This is the science part.)' — and its verdict is '(writing something, unreadable).' The biggest beats live in parentheses. Directions are the drama's narration channel; read them like they cost the playwright something, because they did.
- “A soliloquy is just a long speech.” — the teacher response is in the full lesson.
- “The forms are old-fashioned stagecraft — modern stories don't use them.” — the teacher response is in the full lesson.
- “The play forgot to include the ending — we never learn who wins.” — the teacher response is in the full lesson.
🔒 Every misconception ships with a tested classroom response. See plans →
Scaffolded practice
The workbook follows gradual release rather than a page of blank prompts: 2 fully worked, 2 partially completed, then 4 independent.
- I doLiteral first — the channel chart. Sort these five moments: Jules's pitch (¶6), Nora's 'He carried the poster board' (¶4), the ¶3 confession, the pause-and-look (¶6), the judge's exit line (¶7).
🔒 7 more prompts across all three release tiers are in the full lesson. See plans →
Worked solutions and scaffolds for every prompt are in the downloadable kit, included with membership. See plans and pricing.
Exit ticket
- Quote one form feature with its ¶ and name its channel.
🔒 2 more exit-ticket questions are in the full lesson. See plans →
Worked answers, the completed answer tables, and the scoring rubric are in the downloadable kit, included with membership. See plans and pricing.
Printable handouts in the kit
All handouts are in Printable_Handouts.pdf inside the kit download.
Materials and classroom resources
Student experience
Students enter through a low-floor prompt, build or sketch a model, test a strategy, revise their thinking, collaborate, and present a final solution. The task remains accessible while allowing for sophisticated reasoning.
Detailed facilitation notes
- Step 1: Read the play aloud in parts — stage directions get a voice too. Ask: “What do you notice?”, “What could you try next?”, and “How can you prove that?”
- Step 2: Chart who hears what: dialogue, aside, soliloquy — three channels. Ask: “What do you notice?”, “What could you try next?”, and “How can you prove that?”
- Step 3: Map each form feature to the work it does that dialogue can't. Ask: “What do you notice?”, “What could you try next?”, and “How can you prove that?”
- Step 4: Test by transplant: move a soliloquy line into the dialogue and watch the play change. Ask: “What do you notice?”, “What could you try next?”, and “How can you prove that?”
Differentiation and inclusion
Support: The three-channel chart (who hears what) makes the form visible to every reader; extend with the scene-break analysis and the missing-soliloquy writing task.
Language support: “I started by…”, “My model shows…”, and “I know my answer is reasonable because…”.
Extension: Require a second solution, alter a condition, or have students write a challenge for another group.
Accessibility: Manipulatives, enlarged visuals, oral response choices, partner reading, and reduced-copy student pages.
Assessment plan
Formative checks: Strategy choice, accuracy, representation, collaboration, and explanation.
End evidence: One form feature (quoted, ¶ cited) with a two-sentence analysis of what it contributes that dialogue could not.
Mastery: The student completes the task accurately and explains the strategy with limited prompting.