My name is Karen Baker. I have taught high school and middle school and college, speech, theatre, drama, theatre arts, (I'm so old the goldurn subject changed names several times), even taught debate and English in those lean years when we were so busy winning state the spring before we didn't have time to go to the junior high to recruit all the little rugrats before they signed up for band.

I know where you are. I was there for 25 years. You meet for an ARD at 7:00 in the morning (and you drag yourself out of bed early 'cause you're the only teacher in the entire school who likes this kid; he's precious in your class and he fixes your sound system when you break it), then you teach 3 different preps, spend your lunch on the phone either getting fussed at by the state drama director 'cause you screwed up or fussing at the state drama director 'cause he screwed up. During your conference the Seniors who have early release come to your room because they love you and they need to do their homework before rehearsal and by the way will you watch their college audition monologue? Then rehearsal starts and 2 hours is over in about 7 minutes somehow, but it's six o'clock anyway. Thirty minutes later, after refereeing one fight and playing unqualified therapist, you remember that the Theatre One kids finished watching the Twelfth Night Video today. (Well, it was a lovely 4 days, but they're over now.) You fleetingly wonder what people with normal jobs do to feed their families, call and tell your spousal unit to order pizza again, and sit down to type up instructions for the Shakespeare monologue assignment and pull scripts from the shelves. If you're lucky there'll be some cold pizza left when you get home.

Some people reading this might think I was making up a cute little scenario all full of hyperbole and whatnot. Those people do not teach theatre.

If you are like me, you spend your clothing money on play scripts and books about acting and the theatre. Then you get to go read the books, which cover things you mostly know, and then go make a handout, assignment sheet, lesson plan, and test so you can teach the stuff in the book.

I have put my files from the last 25 years on CD Rom. The materials are things I generated in order to have grades to put in the computer lest folks have confirmation that theatre is the blow off class they believe it to be.

Children who are doing learning activities must be supervised, directed, mentored. They also require your help with time management, sequencing, etc. This can be taught orally, but they won't all write it down. The ones who are absent won't have heard it. You can write the instructions on the board, but what you write probably won't be there tomorrow on your lovely, clean, shiny blackboard anyway.

So, here are instruction sheets, lessons, handouts, and tests from assignments I've taught. Units are grouped into folders. It is in no logical order. I found in my years that the sequence you choose will vary from year to year, anyway. (I saved it in list view by title, but it may come up as icons on your computer. It will be easier to browse if you change the view to list view.)

These documents are in RTF (Rich Text Format), so most machines will read them. When you save in Claris or Word, your document has more flexibility for changes, prettier fonts, borders, inserting graphics, etc.

To use:
Open a folder (double click).
Double click on an item and open it, revise and re-format it to suit your needs, (add your teacher name , exact due dates, or whatever.)
Save as a title you will remember and save as type ClarisWorks or Word.
This leaves my old RTF Document alone for your future use.

If you have trouble getting a document to open or if it opens in an ancient alien scrit:

1. First see if there is a genius child in your class who can fix it in a nanosecond while giving you the "you are so old lame and pitiful" look.

2. Call or take your CD to the computer teacher down the hall. S/he is a professional educator. S/he will not give you "the look." S/he may make fun of you in the lounge later on, but you're never in there anyway.

I hope you use these resources for the next twenty-five years in your classroom (Godhelpyou). You may make unlimited copies of handouts for all your students. But if a friend wants to raid your files or borrow the disk, please ask them to call me and order a disk. I don't make those big schoolteacher bucks anymore, and I need to make my house payment. I hope you feel you got your money's worth. And I hope you get home before the pizza gets cold for a change.

We appreciate your business.
Karen Baker