Make Way for Ducklings Workshop (2020), Virtual Learning Guide

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Welcome to the Make Way For Ducklings
Virtual Learning Guide!

We here at WFT@BU are thrilled that you have decided to engage your class in educational activities surrounding our recent virtual workshop production of the new musical Make Way For Ducklings!

In this virtual learning guide (VLG), you will find videos, exercises, and activities for students of all ages examining all of the aspects of the theatrical process of adapting a book into a musical. Many activities can be conducted either in-person or in a virtual classroom. You can use this VLG like a curriculum, working through all of the activities or picking and choosing those that best suit your class and its goals.

If you have any questions or would like to share how you and your class engaged with the VLG, send us an email at WFTEd@bu.edu. We’d love to hear from you!

In the Form It section, you will find exercises and activities designed to lead your students through the thought processes of that member of the production team. These activities are designed to spark creativity, questions, ideas, and thoughtful analysis, connecting the dots from source material to concept to production.

Try It

In the Try It section, you will find exercises and activities designed to get your students on their feet, taking their ideas from page to stage. In these activities, students will move, act, build, explore, and create, as they try out the various roles on the production team, discovering both excitement and challenges along the way.

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All sections contain activities that aim to build cross-curricular connections. Many activities can be adapted from being about Make Way For Ducklings to any book, story, or work of literature that your class is reading.

Activities are marked with the following age-range suggestions:

EE — Early elementary (grades K-2)
LE — Late elementary (grades 3-5)
MS — Middle school (grades 6-8)
HS — High school (grades 9+)

Many activities contain reflection questions you might choose to use to wrap up the learning from that activity.

We would like to introduce you to the following thinking routines (Ritchhart, Church & Morrison, 2011; Ritchhart & Church, 2020), which can be used to synthesize students’ thinking and generate actionable ideas for future learning any time during your exploration of the virtual study guide.

Connect/Extend/Challenge

Ask your students to reflect on the following questions:
- How is what I have just learned connected to what I already know?
- How is what I have just learned expanding or pushing my thinking in new ways?
- What new challenges or questions have arisen in my mind from what I have just learned?
In particular, these questions might encourage active listening during videos in the Watch It section. Pose questions before watching for students to take notes on, or introduce them immediately after watching.

(Ritchhart, Church & Morrison, 2011, p. 132)

What/So What/Now What

To conclude an activity or unit, ask students to respond to the following prompts:
- WHAT — what did we do or learn?
- SO WHAT — why did we do or learn these things, what am I taking away?
- NOW WHAT — what will I do or learn next, now that I know this?

(Ritchhart & Church, 2020, p. 174)

What next?

So… now what? If you are looking for a culminating project after exploring the Make Way For Ducklings virtual learning guide with your class, consider…

Each student develops a production concept for Make Way For Ducklings or another book/story.
Make mini-production teams of small groups in your class, with one student on each team assigned to each role. Each team develops a production concept for Make Way For Ducklings or another book/story.
Split your class into design committees, one for each role on the production team. As a class, develop a production concept for Make Way For Ducklings or another book/story.

A workshop is an important step on the journey of a play or musical to a complete, final script. Producing a workshop allows the writers to see the current version of their script performed in production and to make adjustments based on what they see onstage and hear from the production team, actors, and audience members. Think of it as a draft of a final production! During the rehearsal process for a workshop production, the script can continue to change and evolve, as the production team and the writers share ideas, discuss challenges, and make edits throughout.

The December 2020 virtual workshop production of Make Way For Ducklings at WFT@BU is the second workshop of this musical. The first workshop was performed by Adventure Theatre MTC in Bethesda, Maryland in June 2020. A unique aspect of this musical’s journey is that the artists at WFT@BU have been a part of the process since the beginning, reading and offering feedback on drafts of the script up to the first workshop and between the first and second workshops.

WFT@BU looks forward to producing Make Way For Ducklings on their main stage in the future! During the process of the workshop, the director and design team not only brainstormed and made plans for the December 2020 virtual workshop production, but also dreamed ahead to what a fully-produced version could look like.