BWW Blog: Adam Brandner - Three Button Exercise

Three Button Exercise

By: Adam Brandner

Every fall, I like to get my students interested in the idea of writing. I start by introducing them to creative writing in the hope that they will fall in love with it. Some do, and some don't. But the process of learning creative writing can be fun nonetheless. One of the challenging lesson plans that I have created is called: Three Buttons. I have three bags each filled with buttons that students can draw from.

Bag One: A location

Bag Two: A character

Bag Three: An obstacle for the character to over come.

Once a student draws three buttons, they have 25 minutes to write and then perform a monologue about their given circumstance. It's a creative, puzzle-like activity that gets students excited about the idea of writing and creating their own story. Here are some examples for each bag.

Location Bag:

• A mysterious cave
• An Italian cafe
• On a frozen planet outside the Milky Way
• A mud hut in a deep, dark jungle
• An underwater castle
• On The Edge of a mountain
• Inside the imagination of your greatest enemy
• On a pirate ship
• In a high school gymnasium at midnight
• In a dream

Character Bag:

• A confused 6-year-old alien
• A suborn clown fish
• A student that is terrified of being alone
• An elderly warrior
• A young writer
• An ambitious king/queen
• A very successful but injured athlete
• An untalented wasp
• An uptight wizard
• A friendly baboon

Obstacle Bag:

• An evil thief
• A bad storm
• A psychological ailment
• A school yard bully
• The French Army
• A simple fool
• Confusion of identity
• A fire raging out of control
• An obese waiter
• A pimple

I have had tremendous success with this activity and I hope you can introduce it to your students or cast as well. You can always add in a twist here or there to make this activity more challenging. Like having a fourth bag filled with accents. One of the funniest monologues I have ever seen was an elderly warrior in a high school gymnasium at midnight that had to overcome a fire raging out of control with a Scottish accent. Priceless.

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