Interior Chinatown

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“Scene from a Second-Person Screenplay”

In this activity, students will reflect on the interplay of forms in Interior Chinatown after writing and performing their own scenes from a second-person screenplay.

Interior Chinatown uniquely combines a second-person screenplay format with the conventions of a novel. In this activity, you will create your own screenplay scene, written in the second person. You will perform your scene for your classmates. Then, you will read several of your classmates' scenes, watch these scenes being performed, reflect on how the written versions compare with the performed versions, and explain what this experience highlights about Yu’s text.

Write, “Publish,” and Perform Your Scene

• Choose school-appropriate characters, setting, and conflict, and write a scene of 1.5-2 pages.
• Remember that in a screenplay, a “scene” takes place in one setting and at one time—don’t change locations or use any time-shifts.
• If you need a refresher on how to set up a screenplay scene, you can consult online sources like this one.
• Provide copies of your scene for your classmates to read.
• Perform your scene for your classmates.

Read and Watch Several Scenes

• Read your classmates’ scenes.
• As you watch these scenes performed, consider how this experience differs from simply reading the scenes.

Reflect on the Experience

Answer the following questions in one to three sentences each:

1. Which of the scripts were more engaging in written form, and which were more engaging as performances?

2. What features of the scripts explain your answer to #1?

3. Do you think that seeing Yu’s “screenplay” performed would add to the experience, or is it better as a novel? Why?

4. What features of Yu’s novel does this experience highlight for you?

Teaching Suggestion: This will most likely work best as a small-group activity because of the logistics of reading and performing the scripts. Individual accountability can be ensured by requiring that the final reflections be written individually rather than by the entire group. If your students have access to an online classroom site, you might ask them to post copies of their scripts there, instead of asking for physical copies for other students to read. If you ask students to do the reading as homework instead of in class, you may wish to add some kind of accountability measure so that they are genuinely prepared before watching the scenes performed.

Differentiation Suggestion: If students are not working in groups, students with anxiety, perfectionism, and related conditions may benefit from assistance in selecting a topic for their scenes. You may wish to have a short list of suggestions prepared for students to choose from. There are also students for whom public performance is unreasonably difficult—English language learners and those with dyslexia may struggle to read aloud from scripts, for example, and those with anxiety may not wish to perform in front of the class. You might stress to students that it is not necessary for group-written scripts to provide an acting role for every single group member and that their work will be evaluated based on the scripts themselves as well as the reflections they write afterward, not on the performance element of the activity. You might even allow a dedicated pool of “actors” to perform all of the scripts, if this works best for your classroom.