A/RP 2025-26: Chris Landis & Jason Roebke

General Information

Big Idea

Monologue Angles

Inquiry Question

What is Theater? How do we know where it begins and ends?

Grade

6th

Number of Students

About

Describe Your Project.

Students explored personal storytelling through writing, printing, fine arts and live performance, drawing on ELA/literacy and theater practices such as The Moth Story Hour to develop narratives grounded in lived experience. Through the study of monologues and published texts, they examined voice, perspective, and emotional expression while reflecting on how stories carry layered meanings. The project emphasized interdisciplinary “radical cross-pollination,” encouraging connections between personal identity, community experience, and collective understanding.

Students made an outline of their name stories based on the Moth Story. They then made prints of their outlines. They were then given monologues to learn and perform with music. The students made and performed musical scores for the monologues. They also created movement interpretations of their monologues. We explored the edges and limits of “What is Theater?”

Waters 2026 Final.mp4

Describe how the inquiry was introduced and maintained with your students.

At the beginning of the unit we introduced the Big Idea and Inquiry Question. Each time we introduced a new activity, we would revisit the inquiry question and ask the students how the classroom activity related to the inquiry question. We planned activities that might fall outside of the students idea of theater. The students were challenged to connect printing, music, storytelling into the world of theater.

What references did you draw from, and what influenced you when creating and planning your project?

We drew from MOTH stories, Kandinsky, Steppenwolf Theater Company monologue resources, and the Yoko Ono exhibition at the MCA.

Choose 1 academic learning standard and 1 arts learning standard you’re exploring in your project.

What art and non-art academic content did you integrate into your project?

Theatre Standard - TH:Cr1.1.6 - c. Explore a scripted or improvised character authentic to a drama/ theatre work. ELA Standards - Writing Grade 6 - CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.6.3 - Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences.

Keeping in mind that this was a theatre class, in terms of other arts, we integrated printing, drawing and painting, music, and movement into the unit on storytelling and monologues. As non-art academic content we taught and assessed writing, specifically with the Moth-style name narratives.

Your Inquiry Process

What did you learn about how your students engaged in the inquiry process? What questions did students form?

Give an example how your inquiry may have shifted based on how students responded to inquiry with relevant artifact(s).

The students were very shy and it was fortunate that our inquiry question led us to areas other than the task of performing monologues. At the very last meeting, students were very active and had a lot of great questions but were pretty much silent for the previous classes.

I wonder how the students could feel more comfortable asking questions and proposing ideas earlier in the unit. We did learn that the students could learn about theatre by doing a lot of planning and thinking about the process of acting but were less willing to engage in acting itself.

What did you learn through teaching your inquiry?

Chris

Through the inquiry question, I discovered that our students already had personal ideas on what constitutes theatre. To challenge their definitions, we provided a variety of multidisciplinary opportunities. Students tested our inquiry questions by:

Writing and performing personal, The Moth-style name narratives.
Integrating visual arts by creating styrofoam print name cards and painting monologue stage directions using emotionally representative colors and shapes.
Analyzing and performing assigned monologues, focusing heavily on physical staging—exploring space, shape, and narrative structure through silent movement.
Composing digital audio using drum machines to underscore the emotional arcs of their performance pieces.

Following each lesson, we returned to our questions: Is this theatre? Where does it begin and end?

While our assessment at the end of these lessons was more informal—utilizing quick 'thumbs up, down, or sideways' checks rather than written responses—there was value in the ongoing dialogue. Many classes the students were split; some defended the different angles as theatre, while others held to more traditional definitions. Ultimately, the inquiry succeeded not by forcing a consensus, but by creating a consistent, reflective space where students actively practiced and experienced different aspects of performance art.

Jason

The unit was designed in a way that could work under various circumstances. The students were not very enthusiastic about performing their name story monologue but they were pretty enthusiastic about printing their planning documents and experimenting with mixing colors and patterns on paper. Since our inquiry question could account for going a lot of different places with the classes, the students could have the opportunity to make a lot of work that was not "acting."

How did the inquiry process enable continued and reflective questioning for you and your student

The inquiry question allowed the students to explore many different aspects at theater that were peripheral but essential to their understanding of monologues. They were quite shy about acting and directly engaging in the acting but since we had so many other activities based in the inquiry question, the students grappled with the process in a more complex way, even though they were avoiding the core task. In the end, the students explored printing, drawing, writing, and music making. I think that the students started a deeper understanding of the process though the class.

Copy of CAPE Landis/Roebke SY25-26

Provide an example of how you assessed your project’s inquiry and any relevant artifact(s)?

To assess our Big Idea: Monologue Angles — the teaching artist, Jason, and I implemented a balanced mix of formative and summative strategies.

Throughout the process, we utilized formative checks for understanding, including 'thumbs up, down, or sideways' voting, written exit tickets, and structured peer-to-peer evaluations. For the culminating benchmarks—the The Moth-style name narratives and the final monologue performances—we designed and applied comprehensive performance-task rubrics. This dual approach allowed us to measure both the daily creative process and the final artistic output.

Below are examples of the peer-to-peer evaluation tool used during the personal narrative unit, alongside the criteria rubric utilized to assess the final monologue performances.

Rubric Monologues 6th grade

6th Grade NAME STORIES Student Assesment Check list

Printing Names

The students wrote their name stories based on an example of the Moth Stories. The students were asked to research the origins of their name by interviewing their family and perform a short narrative. We then used planning documents for their writing as material to make prints.

CAPE 6th SY 25-26.MOV

Exhibition

The CAPE Exhibition displayed the gamut of art work that the students produced. There are scripts with highlighed action words, music mapping plans, stage directions that became Kandinsky paintings, name prints, and a video of a group monologue performance.

M. Mitchell Moth.MOV

Merrit performs a monologue

Students performed their monologues throughout the course of the unit. We made progress in their acting by letting the students engage with the language of their monologues in various ways.

IMG_0688.MOV

Music Map

Students made music maps to guide their classmates in accompanying their monologue performances. The students then collaborated to perform in front of the class.

Did this project generate more questions for you?

What questions did this project leave you with?

Chris

The unit and collaboration with Jason did not end with a lot of answers; instead, it opened up a deeper set of questions about our role as teachers and the nature of the creative process. Moving forward, I find myself reflecting on several core queries:

Curriculum Design: Is anchoring a unit around a singular, evolving inquiry question the most effective framework for teaching both personal narrative storytelling (The Moth style) and the interpretation of published monologues? In what specific ways did this 'Big Idea' approach enhance or complicate student learning?
Trusting the Process: How do we as educators cultivate and maintain faith in the organic, often messy artistic process, especially when working within a collaborative teaching model?
Pedagogical Pivot Points: How should a teacher constructively evaluate their own pedagogy and 'teacher moves' when the classroom outcomes diverge from initial assumptions or expected results?

Ultimately, this project left me wondering how to balance my instructional goals with the unpredictable reality of student-driven inquiry.

Jason

Does the teaching artist creeate a barrier by being a stranger in the room making them more shy. How can this be overcome? Teaching music to kids without each of them having an instrument remains a mystery to me. How can I allow students to improve their undertanding of music in a classroom setting? How can I incorporate music into my teaching more?

Page updated

Report abuse