Designing our Solution

This week the students are working very hard in trying to get some decisions made so that we can move on to working on the actual script and scenery (which is the fun part!). Over the past couple of weeks we have been brainstorming potential characters, settings, and reactions to our "haunted house". Last week we came to the conclusion that we were going to try to focus on the reaction "grossed out".  I think this might change as we continue developing our plot, but we'll see what the kids come up with.

To kick off our practice, we started with a simple verbal spontaneous problem.  The team did fairly well working with it.  Several students are really starting to use the SCAMPER technique as well as build off of what the students in front of them said.  The second part is critical, especially as some students start answering with high creative or humorous answers every time!  If my OMers who struggling to say something creative every time can begin to shift their thinking based on what someone in front of them said, I think their ability to give consistently creative answers will increase.  After discussing this idea with the team we re-did the same spontaneous problem.  Using this technique in conjunction with SCAMPER the team was able to double their score! I think by seeing the "payoff" from not only thinking creatively on an individual level, but also as a team, their spontaneous score can really improve.

Once we started working on our longterm problem, the team made a lot of good strides and really started thinking creatively! As a group, we decided that our basic plot was going to be some characters (we haven't completely decided who yet) were going to start off by surfing in the ocean.  As they are surfing, they wreck and end up getting eaten by a whale.  Inside the whale belly is where our "haunted house is going to occur.  Our surprise ending is going to consistent of the characters who were trapped in the whale belly to get shot out of the blow hole and land on an island where a party is taking place.

I personally love their base story so far.  I think the idea of having the "haunted house" take place inside the belly of a whale is genius and it lends the kids lots of different "haunted" things that could take place.  During this practice we also watched a couple of the performances from the teams that competed in the competition.  I can tell that the students really looked critically at each of the skits and tweaked what they saw to go into their own skit.  I'm really excited to see what they come up with once we start script writing and set designing!