Educators' Page

Imagination Stretching Through Puppetry

Puppetry workshops for school students

WHAT IS A PUPPET?

A puppet is any object brought to life by a person in front of an audience. A puppet must communicate. A puppet usually must move. A puppet must be used as a vehicle to transport ideas from one imagination to another, not as a static object or sculpture, but as a being that lives, breathes, and feels, in the imagination of a living, breathing, feeling audience. Whether complex and beautiful, or elementary and crude, when an object is brought to life as a communicator, it is a puppet.

NATIONAL AND STATE OF LOUISIANA CONTENTS STANDARDS

PERFORMANCES, along with study guide activities, fulfill a minimum of eight benchmarks of the listed national and Louisiana standards in theater.

WORKSHOPS AND RESIDENCIES fulfill national English language standards in communication skills, as well as skills in applying language and knowledge, and also in participation in society and in multicultural understanding. Workshops and residencies fulfill national arts standards in theater in script writing, acting and improvisation, directing, analysis, and the understanding of context. Students will fulfill from 2 - 6 benchmarks within each of the NATIONAL LANGUAGE ARTS STANDARDS. Students will fulfill from 2 - 6 benchmarks within each of the NATIONAL THEATER ARTS STANDARDS. Students will fulfill from 2 - 5 benchmarks within each of the LOUISIANA LANGUAGE ARTS STANDARDS. Students will fulfill from 2 - 6 benchmarks within each of the LOUISIANA THEATER ARTS STANDARDS

NATIONAL LANGUAGE ARTS STANDARDS:

NL-ENG.K-12.4 COMMUNICATION SKILLS
NL-ENG.K-12.6 APPLYING KNOWLEDGE
NL-ENG.K-12.9 MULTICULTURAL UNDERSTANDING
NL-ENG.K-12.11 PARTICIPATING IN SOCIETY
NL-ENG.K-12.12 APPLYING LANGUAGE SKILLS

NATIONAL THEATER ARTS STANDARDS

NA-T.1. SCRIPT WRITING BY PLANNING AND RECORDING IMPROVISATIONS BASED ON PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AND HERITAGE, IMAGINATION, LITERATURE, AND HISTORY
NA-T.2, ACTING BY ASSUMING ROLES AND INTERACTING IN IMPROVISATIONS
NA-T.3. DESIGNING BY VISUALIZING AND ARRANGING ENVIRONMENTS FOR CLASSROOM DRAMATIZATIONS
NA-T.4, DIRECTING BY PLANNING CLASSROOM DRAMATIZATIONS
NA-T.5. RESEARCHING BY FINDING INFORMATION TO SUPPORT CLASSROOM DRAMATIZATIONS
NA-T.6, COMPARING AND CONNECTING ART FORMS BY DESCRIBING THEATRE, DRAMATIC MEDIA (SUCH AS FILM, TELEVISION, AND ELECTRONIC MEDIA), AND OTHER ART FORMS
NA-T.7. ANALYZING AND EXPLAINING PERSONAL PREFERENCES AND CONSTRUCTING MEANINGS FROM CLASSROOM DRAMATIZATIONS AND FROM THEATRE, FILM, TELEVISION, AND ELECTRONIC MEDIA PRODUCTIONS
NA-T.8. UNDERSTANDING CONTEXT BY RECOGNIZING THE ROLE OF THEATRE, FILE, TELEVISION, AND ELECTRONIC MEDIA IN DAILY LIFE

LOUISIANA LANGUAGE ARTS STANDARDS

ELA-1 Students read, comprehend, and respond to a range of materials, using a variety of strategies for different purposes.
ELA-2 Students write competently for a variety of purposes and audiences.
ELA-3 Students communicate using standard English grammar, usage, sentence structure, punctuation, capitalization, spelling, and handwriting.
ELA-4 Students demonstrate competence in speaking and listening as tools for learning and communicating.
ELA-5 Students locate, select, and synthesize information from a variety of texts, media, references, and technological sources to acquire and communicate knowledge.
ELA-6 Students read, analyze, and respond to literature as a record of life experiences.
ELA-7 Students apply reasoning and problem solving skills to reading, writing, speaking, listening, viewing, and visually representing.

LOUISIANA THEATER ARTS STANDARDS

CE-1Th CREATIVE EXPRESSION FOCUS
AP-2Th AESTHETIC PERCEPTION FOCUS
HP-3Th HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL PERCEPTION FOCUS
CA-4Th CRITICAL ANALYSIS FOCUS

PUPPETRY RESOURCES

A FEW RECOMMENDED BOOKS:

The Art of the Puppet, by Bil Baird
Screen Play, Shadow Puppetry on the Overhead Projector, by Jeanine Bartelt
Making Puppets Come Alive, by Larry Engler and Carol Fijan
Directing Puppet Theatre, by Carol Fijan and Frank Ballard
Imagination, At Play With Puppets and Creative Drama, by Nancy Frazier and Nancy Renfro
Puppet Cookbook, recipes for puppets from In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, edited by Christopher Griffith
Puppetry In Early Childhood Education, by Tamara Hunt and Nancy Renfro
Puppeteer, by Kathryn Lasky.
The Complete Book of Puppetry, by George Latshaw
Puppet Shows Made Easy, by Nancy Renfro
Puppets and Masks, Stagecraft and Storytelling, by Nan Rump
Puppets For Dreaming and Scheming, A Puppet Source Book, by Judy Sims
The Puppetry Handbook, by Anita Sinclair
Worlds of Shadow, Teaching with Shadow Puppetry, by David Wisniewski and Donna Wisniewski

Many puppetry books, etc. are available from the Puppetry Store, accessible through the Puppeteers of America web site www.puppeteers.org.

ORGANIZATIONS:

Puppeteers of America - Highly valuable organization for communication among puppet users of all kinds. Bimonthly magazine, free expert consultants available on over 25 puppet related topics, annual festivals featuring national and international performers and workshops, mail order puppetry store offering puppet related books, pamphlets, scripts, patterns, video and audio tapes.

Puppetry Store: store@puppeteers.org
Information: www.puppeteers.org

UNIMA-USA - The American chapter of Union Internationale de la Marionette, the world's oldest theater organization, created for international communication among puppeteers. The best way to keep up to date on festivals, conferences, training and scholarships, and other international theater associations.

Information: www.unima-usa.org