Creating Radio Plays

Once your students have been exposed to how radio plays look, sound, and work, they might want to try creating their own spooky, Halloween radio plays. (It would probably be helpful to write a very short radio play as a class first.)

Here are some guidelines you could use:

1. Work in groups of up to 4 people or you may work alone. Every person in the group should contribute equally to the finished product.
2. Use the proper radio play format.
3. Give instructions that describe how lines should be read by characters. Examples: whispered, yelled, frightened, laughing
4. Include important sounds that let the listener know where you are and what you are doing. Scary sounds like wind blowing, thunder, and music set a scary mood.
5. Make sure your story has all plot parts: exposition (tells the listener who is in the story, where and when the story takes place, why characters are where they are); rising action (a few, small events that catch the listener's interest); climax (the big event that scares your listener out of his or her seat); falling action (what happened to the characters right after the big, scary event); resolution (an ending that wraps up any loose ends).
6. Your radio play must be a minimum of 25 lines (the speaker changes 25 times).

Sample Rubric:

	Excellent	Good	Needs Work
Proper formatting	20	19	18
Instructions for reading lines	20	19	18
Important sounds	20	19	18
Plot Parts	20	19	18
25 lines	10	8	7
Punctuation	3	2	1
Spelling	2	1	0
Working together	5	3	1