Clarification details
Updated September 2015. The section dealing with ‘the scripting process’ has been updated.
The scripting process
This is verified by the teacher and teacher observation, check lists, annotated drafts or other means that might provide evidence of authentic student contribution.
Students should be taking into account the patience and perspective of an audience when shaping their material. The overlooking of audience response, combined with their frequent desire to project very weighty ideas in a short drama, challenges their achieving higher grades.
The enacted reading
The decision for the student’s final grade is based on the viability of the script in performance. The need to provide a rehearsed enacted play reading of the whole script is a test of the pieces performability, and should be in a workshop context under the direction of the student writer and prefaced by an introduction from them, clarifying dramatic intent.
The enacted reading is to give the writers an opportunity to refine and edit the work before handing in the script for assessment. This part of the process is to test stage directions, choices for set design, overall coherency, dramatic flow and effectiveness of the text for live performance.
The final scripted drama
It is the quality of the final scripted drama and its relationship to the stated intention that provides the increment between grades.
Features of an appropriate script include:
- management of exposition structure so that the piece is economical yet informative
- awareness of the intended audience
- characters that are consistent but alive in speech and drive the action
- careful structure in the use of dialogue to suit the character and situation (making it believable and avoiding clichéd or banal dialogue and action)
- consideration of space and how the text will be enacted, for example, smooth transitions that enable passage of time to be clear, or to create a change of place
- strong openings and endings.
Suitability for live performance
Suitability for drama performance means that the script can be performed for live performance. Students need guidance to ensure they do not write scripts that include special effects or have settings that are more suitable for film or television. Scenes that contain excessive violence or horror genres are not recommended.