Page 114 - SpringBoard_Writing_Workshop_Grade7_Flipbook

After Reading
6. When you have finished reading, respond to the following questions about the script’s ideas, structure, and use of language in the space provided. Be prepared to discuss your answers with your classmates.
a. Ideas: Who are the major characters in this script, and what are they like? What is the setting, and how can you tell? Provide specific examples from the text to show how the writer uses dialogue to develop the characters, establish a setting, and tell the story.
The main characters are two aliens, apparently made up of machine
or something besides flesh. They are baffled that Earth’s only sentient beings are made of meat. (“Maybe they’re like the orfolei. You know,
a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage.”) They seem intelligent and sympathetic, but a bit snobby. (“It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?”) The setting seems to be a spaceship that is visiting Earth. (“And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you probed?”)
b. Structure: What is the plot of the script? What exposition is provided? What is the conflict? What is the resolution of the conflict?
The plot is that two aliens are deciding whether or not to make contact with Earth. The exposition includes the information that the aliens have been studying earthlings for quite some time. (“We picked up several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, and probed them all the way through.”) There is an external conflict between the two aliens as one tries to convince the other that earthlings are “made of meat.” They resolve the conflict by deciding not to make contact with these strange beings.
c. Use of Language: How does the dialogue provide cues for the actors’ vocal and visual delivery? What other text features and conventions of script writing do you recognize? How does the diction and imagery create a mood that will engage the audience?
Because there are no stage directions, actors will need to depend on interpreting the dialogue in order to inform their vocal and visual delivery. Lines such as “Omigod. You’re serious then” provide cues that the actors should appear disbelieving and shocked. One can imagine that the line “You’re asking me to believe in sentient meat” might be accompanied by visual delivery such as a shake of the head. Other text features include the use of the letters “A” and “B” to indicate characters, followed by colons to introduce dialogue. The diction helps develop the characterization of the aliens (“infinitesimal” and “unutterably”) while lines such as “You know how when you slap or flap meat, it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other” create a humorous tone.
Check Your Understanding
7. The script “They’re Made Out of Meat” does not have a narrator. Find a
place in the text where you could add narration in order to convey plot, setting, or character more clearly. Write a line of narration and explain what it adds to the text.
Possible response: Before the first line of dialogue, a narrator could announce: “Five hundred miles above the surface of Earth, a Junior Executive in the Interplanetary Relations Department needs to describe some disturbing developments to his direct superior.”
Writing Workshop 9 • Script Writing 5
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