1. English Language Arts
Level 8 Lesson 53
Mrs. Morrisey

2. Grammar Grabber
What time it is.

3. Grammar Grabber
What time is it?

4. Quickwrite: (5 minutes)
If you were Adams, would you have trusted that the hitchhiker that you kept seeing was real? Explain.

6. Quickwrite: (5 minutes)
If you were Adams, would you have trusted that the hitchhiker that you kept seeing was real? Explain.

7. Lesson Objective
Radio Drama
The Hitchhiker

8. More about Radio Drama? No Visual Component
What is Radio Drama?
(a dramatized, purely acoustic performance
broadcast in audio media)
More about Radio Drama?
No Visual Component
Dependent upon narration, dialogue, music and sound effects
Listener imagines the story

9. Radio Drama History 1880s French engineer requested patent
1920s English radio drama begins in US
1930s radio drama popular in US and other countries
Mysteries, thrillers, soap operas, and comedies
1950s-60s radio drama lost popularity w/
advent of television

10. Radio Drama Elements

11. Narration
(the process of telling a story or describing
what happens)

12. Dialogue (conversation, talking between two or more people)
Gives Information
Characterization
Builds Suspense
Sets Tempo

13. Music
(enhanced performance through creation of
dramatic mood)

14. Sound Effects (artificially created sounds to enhance content
of a drama or film)

15. The Hitchhiker Introduction
by: Lucille Fletcher
Ronald Adams
sets out on a
cross-country
journey...

16. Questions from the Story
1. What is Ronald Adam's original destination?
2. Why does the repeated sight of the hitchhiker
give Adams “the willies”?
3. What does Adams learn about his mother at
the end of the play?
4. What kind of relationship did Adams have
with his mother? Cite evidence to support
your answer.
5. Omit

17. Questions from the Story
6. Reread lines What do the stage
directions and dialogue tell you about the
hitchhiker's appearance and actions? What do
these elements tell you about Adam's feelings
and actions? Cite specific details in your
answer.
7. Who do you think the hitchhiker is? Give
proof from the play to support your conclusion.

18. Questions from the Story
1. What is Ronald Adam's original destination?
California
2. Why does the repeated sight of the hitchhiker give Adams “the willies”?
Everywhere he looks, the hitchhiker is there.
This is not possible.
3. What does Adams learn about his mother at the end of the play? She had a nervous breakdown

19. Questions from the Story
4. What kind of relationship did Adams have
with his mother? Cite evidence to support
your answer.
Close. Loving. Nurturing. Mother dotes
over him before he leaves. He tells his mother
not to come out in the rain. He calls his mother
at the end of the story for comfort. Mother has
nervous breakdown because of his fate.
5. Omit

20. Questions from the Story
6. Reread lines What do the stage
directions and dialogue tell you about the
hitchhiker's appearance and actions? What do
these elements tell you about Adam's feelings
and actions? Cite specific details in your
answer. He was ominous, drab, dreary. Adams
was afraid and uncomfortable about the hitch-
hiker's presence.

21. Questions from the Story
7. Who do you think the hitchhiker is? Give
proof from the play to support your conclusion.
The hitchhiker is Adams. At the end of the
story, Ms. Whitney reports his death, when
and where it occurs. Also, no one sees the
hitchhiker but him.

22. Questions from the Story
8. What are some similarities and differences
between the characters, settings, and endings
Of “The Tell-Tale Heart” and The Hitchhiker?
Present your answers in a Venn diagram.
Beginning lines... “I'm not mad.”
Vexation (the hitchhiker, the glass eye)
Mental Illness
Death

23. Viewing The Hitchhiker

24. What did we learn in this lesson?
1. Reviewed Radio Drama
2. The Hitchhiker Questions

25. View The Hitchhiker.
Write a 1-2 page paper comparing and contrasting
the written version with the video of the play.