The skills of playwriting are correctable, the craft of playwriting is teachable, and the art of playwriting is encourageable. In the area of craft, students can learn through models how accomplished playwrights deal with plot, characterization, dialogue, and theme. For the first element, plot development, students can look at written models to understand the use of the traditional elements of dramatic development. Such things as exposition, inciting force, rising tension, climax, and resolution can be seen in the practice of those who have been successful in their efforts. Students can learn about the second element, characterization, from reading and studying models showing how different writers have shaped their own riverbeds and made their own tributaries. Students studying the third element, dialogue, can focus on the need to listen to language as it is spoken in life and as it is recorded by the playwright for respeaking by the actor. Finally, models can be studied for their theme or idea. Of course, every class discussion of the models should include references to the other elements of craft, but a primary focus for each play gives students a particular goal to pursue in their study of each particular model. (HOD)