Oral Interpretation Overview
This is the art of communicating works of literature by reading aloud well.
What is Oral Interpretation?
Name one of the three things you should do when preparing for oral interpretation.
What is choose something you enjoy reading? What is choose a work of quality? What is consider the occasion and the audience?
Out of the following four choices, this would be a poor choice for an oral interpretation:
A dramatic monologue from a play
A mathematical formula
A poem by Walt Whitman
A dramatic monologue from a film
What is a mathematical formula?
Name one of the two types of material usually used for oral interpretation.
This is the system of wants and needs of a character from unit to unit; the character's goal.
This is the place where the practice of oral interpretation originated.
What is Ancient Greece?
The speaker or narrator of the story is also known as this.
What is persona?
What is omniscient?
This is the flow of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry.
What is rhythm?
This is a thing which keeps a character from getting what they want and drives the conflict of a scene.
What is an obstacle?
Before the official study of oral interpretation began at this university, it was used by storytellers and passed down from generation to generation.
What is Harvard?
This type of persona or narrator uses "I" to identify the narrator
What is first-person?
When preparing for this type of oral interpretation, you should consider the character's appearance, their location and background, and their age and relationships.
What is monologue/dramatic monologue?
This is the method of measuring a poem's rhythm.
What is meter?
These are the ways a character goes about overcoming obstacles in order to achieve objectives; the strategies and plans of a character to accomplish their goals.
What are tactics?
These where wandering performers who would assemble to read their works in public competition; they were some of the first practitioners of oral interpretation.1
What are rhapsodes?
This type of narrator or persona describes characters as "he" or "she".
What is third-person?
This can tell a performer how to perform certain speeches just as it indicates where certain thoughts begin and end in written sentences.
What is punctuation?
This is the repetition of sounds between words or syllables, or the endings of lines of verse.
What is rhyme?
This is the importance of the character achieving their objective and the consequences of them failing; when these are higher, a scene is more exciting to act and watch.
What are stakes?
You are reading an excerpt from Shakespeare. You do not give a good performance, instead speaking in monotone, stuttering sentences and with poor body posture.
True or false: This is still an example of oral interpretation.
What is false?
This type of narrator or persona has the author address "you".
What is second-person?
This is a word that must be heard in order for a sentence or series of sentences to make sense (ex. I want to eat a sandwich).
What is operative word?
This is poetic language that creates mental pictures.
What is imagery?
This is the overall message or call to action of the play; what the playwright wants the audience to think or do as a result of seeing the play.
What is super objective?