- ENGLISH (3RD PT)

– DRAMA AND ITS TYPES –

SIX ARISTOTELIAN ELEMENTS OF A PLAY:
DRAMA
- the portrayal of fictional or non-fictional events through the PLOT - story of the play
performance of written dialogues CHARACTER - personas in the play
- comes from the Greek word, “dran” = “to do” or “to act” THOUGHT - central idea of the play
- has one characteristic peculiar to itself, it is written primarily DICTION - words used in the play
to be performed, not read MUSIC - auditory effects
- typically called plays, and their creators are known as SPECTACLE - visual effects
“playwrights” or “dramatists”
CONFLICT AND CHARACTERIZATION:
PLAYWRITING
- the written pages of a play CONFLICT - internal or external struggle that creates
- divided into acts and scenes dramatic tension
ACTS CHARACTERIZATION - playwright’s technique for revealing
- long sections of a play, made up of multiple scenes, usually the personality of a character
designed to separate the play into its main parts and to give
the audience a “break” from the performance TYPES OF CONFLICT:
SCENES
- shorter sections of a play, usually each scene occurs in one Man vs. Man
location at a specific time. Multiple scenes make up and act Man vs. Nature
THEATRE Man vs. Society
- where the play takes place Man vs. Himself

MAJOR TYPES OF DRAMA: Comedy and Tragedy DIRECT AND INDIRECT CHARACTERIZATION:

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN COMEDY AND TRAGEDY: DIRECT

- when the playwright TELLS the audience what the
1. A tragedy has a sad and depressing ending while personality of a character is
a comedy has a happy and vigorous ending - usually found in character description under “list of
2. The plot of a tragedy is marked with a protagonist characters”
causing fear and pity in the audience while a INDIRECT
comic plot often creates laughter in the audience - when the playwright SHOWS the audience things that
3. The plot of a tragedy is marked with a protagonist reveal the personality of the character
causing fear and pity in the audience while a - can be described by the STEAL method
comic plot often creates laughter in the audience
4. The plot of a tragedy is marked with a protagonist S = SPEECH
causing fear and pity in the audience while a T = THOUGHTS
comic plot often creates laughter in the audience E = EFFECT ON OTHERS
A = ACTIONS
DRAMATIC SPEECH: L = LOOKS

DIALOGUE - two or more people talking WRITING ONE-ACT PLAY:

MONOLOGUE - speech spoken by one character
SOLILOQUY - one person speaking their thoughts out loud ONE-ACT PLAY - is usually between 10-40 pages long, and
for the audience is often called a “tenner” because of the short length

STAGE DIRECTION: RULE OF THUMB:

- found in brackets or parenthesis 1. Be set in one location

- describe scenery, action, and how characters speak 2. Be set over a period of no more than a day
3. Have one central plot
4. Have four or fewer characters
5. Have conflict that can be resolved by the end
6. Do not rely with narrator
7. Develop characters through dialogues
8. Follow the standard format of a short story
STANDARDS IN WRITING PLAY: ARENA
- playing space is surrounded by the audience
- use courier new for font style - entrances often consist of aisles through the audience
- use 12 for font size - used to give the audience a sense of intimacy/close
- title is left-aligned, with a colon, preferably bold, and a short connection with the production
description of how long it is, then the name of the author
- characters’ list is left-aligned, preferably bolded, followed by
a short description of them
- act and scene headings are centered
- character’s names are centered and capitalized
- stage directions are indented one tab and italicized
- character’s name in stage directions are capitalized
- parenthetical stage directions are used for small actions

– TECHNICAL VOCABULARY FOR THEATRE DRAMA –

FRONT OF HOUSE - anything in the house, rather than

onstage
HOUSE RIGHT - right side of the auditorium from the
audience’s point of view BLACK BOX
HOUSE LEFT - left side of the auditorium from the - is often a big empty boxes painted black inside. Stage and
audience’s point of view seating not fixed. Instead, each can be altered to suit the
PERSONAL PROPS - items that are carried onstage by an needs of the play or the director
actor during a performance
CALL BOARD - backstage bulletin board where schedules,
announcements and other information is posted
GREEN ROOM - common area where performers wait until it
is time to go onstage
SET DRESSING - decorations that have no function on a set
but are placed there to look good
SHOTGUN MIC - microphone designed to pick up sound
only directly in front of it
JACK KNIFE PLATFORM - platform that pivots on one
corner
FALSE PROSCENIUM - a portal that gives the set its own
“picture frame” THRUST
SUBWOOFER - speaker designed to play very low, almost - audience members on three sides of the stage, leaving one
inaudible frequencies side for taller scenery. It is sometimes called “three quarter
round”
TYPES OF STAGES:

PROSCENIUM
- most common style of staging
- traditionally the playing space is hidden by a curtain
- the farthest downstage plane is where the imaginary 4th
wall is
4TH WALL - the opening into the world of the play

ACTORS BODY POSITION:

– VIEWING GENRES – - goal of this deception is to increase the chance that people
will trust the content without checking the content
VIEWING MATERIALS - ability to perceive, interpret or FABRICATED CONTENT
decode meaning presented in any visual material. There are - new content is 100% false
different ways on how materials can be viewed and those - texts are designed to deceive and to harm
materials may either be printed or non-printed - new fake social media accounts are created
GENRE - category of artistic composition in literature and/or to spread new and invented content from it
other forms of art that serves as a classification of material FALSE CONNECTION
we are viewing - headlines, visuals, or captions don’t support the content
VIEWING GENRES - compilation or group of materials in a - this technique makes claims about content via a
form of videos that composed of moving visual images, sensational headline, only to find the headline is horribly
which may be spontaneous or craftily planned, are recorded, disconnected from the actual article or piece of content
reproduced, or broadcasted FALSE CONTEXT
- genuine content is shared with false contextual information
CLASSIFICATIONS OF VIEWING GENRE: - often happens during a breaking news event when old
imagery is re-shared, but it also happens when old news
MOVIE TRAILER = short clips in movies that lets people articles are re-shared as new, when the headline still
check what type of movie they’ll be watching potentially fits with contemporary events
NEWS FLASH = emergency news MANIPULATED CONTENT
INTERNET-BASED PROGRAM = educational videos online - genuine information or imagery is manipulated to deceive
DOCUMENTARIES = television program - genuine content is tampered with or doctored in some way
WEATHER REPORT = weather updates
– LOGIC, FACTS AND APPEAL –
– TRUTHFULNESS AND ACCURACY OF THE MATERIAL
VIEWED – FAULTY LOGIC:

VIEWING - an active process of attending and FAULTY - having faults or imperfect

comprehending visual media such as television, advertising LOGIC - is the use and study of valid reasoning
images, films, diagrams, symbols, photographs, videos, FAULTY LOGIC - describes poor reasoning, such as the use
dramas, drawings, sculptures and paintings of fallacious arguments like personal opinions and irrelevant
TRUTH - the quality of being honest and not containing or analogies
telling any lie
ACCURACY - the fact of being exact or correct TYPES OF FAULTY LOGIC:

INFORMATION DISORDER: CIRCULAR REASONING - the writer or speaker supports a

claim with restatements of that same claim
~ Wardle (2017) argues that the phrase “fake news” is Ex: John Steven is a wonderful writer because he writes so
inadequate to describe the complexity of deception. This led well
to create the phrase information disorder ~ OVERGENERALIZATION - the writer reaches conclusions
from a limited number of facts; look for words,
TYPES OF INFORMATION DISORDER: all,every,always
Ex: I loved that movie we saw last night with Brad Pitt. I am
SATIRE/PARODY going to rent all his movies, and I am sure I’ll like all of them
- types of viewable texts have no intention to cause harm but SELF-CONTRADICTION - the writer states a position that
has potential to fool contradicts an earlier stated premise
- content are intended to be satire to evade the Ex: As Mayor, my top priority will be improving education.
fact-checkers, and frequently over time, the original context So, my first act of service will be cutting funds for our public
gets lost: people share and re-share not realizing the content schools
is satire and believing that it is true FALSE CAUSALITY - occurs when two events happen at the
MISLEADING CONTENT same time and an assumption is made that one event
- texts that use misleading information to frame an issue or causes the other
an individual Ex: Our house was robbed right after that new family moved
- selection of a partial segment from a quote, creating in next door
statistics that support a particular claim but don’t take into OVER-SIMPLIFICATION - occurs when a single cause is
account how the data set was created, or cropping a photo assumed to have created a problem or an issue. In reality,
to frame an event in a particular way the problem or issue may have been created by a number of
IMPOSTER CONTENT causes
- genuine sources are impersonated Ex: This cause of the Civil War was slavery
- this is when the logo of a well-known brand or name is
used alongside false content
ASSUMPTIONS - occurs when the writer may be proven
false or may be merely stating an opinion
Ex: The superstition mountains are the most beautiful
mountains in Arizona

UNSUPPORTED FACTS:

~ If a statement or theory is unsupported, there is no

evidence which proves that it is true or correct. The letters
contained unsupported allegations ~
Ex: All football players are poor in academics

RHETORICAL APPEAL:
- Greek philosopher ARISTOTLE believed that when people
try to persuade each other, they use three main kinds of
rhetorical appeal
RHETORIC - writing or speaking effectively to persuade
others

KINDS OF RHETORICAL APPEAL:

ETHOS = CREDIBILITY
- trust the advice of a doctor because of who he/she is
- buy something advertised by certain celebrities whom you
trust/respect

PHATOS - appeals to our emotions or feelings. Pathos can

also include humor, shock value, or appeal to physical
sensations like taste

LOGOS
- related to the word LOGIC, or reasoning
- use LOGOS, you appeal to your audience’s BRAINS
- make a good point, or you provide research-based
evidence