Lesson 2: Voice

“Tell me and I forget,

Teach me and I may remember,

Involve me and I learn.”

–Benjamin Franklin

To keep my students curious, I want each class to be different. I want each class to feature different setup styles, different teaching styles, and different learning activities. I don’t want my students to get bored of anything, and I hope that my drama lessons will always feature the unexpected.

For lesson 2, I decided to have a regular classroom setup as opposed to the empty classroom that my students had experienced for the first lesson. However, I noticed that I felt more nervous than I had been before. I felt that perhaps I just wasn’t 100% confident that the activities included in my lesson would help my students learn most effectively. But I found it difficult to tailor to different learning styles while still keeping everyone engaged and involved.

To my great comfort, the students walked into the classroom with bright smiles. “Hi, Miss Greenwood!” They chirped.  Perhaps I wasn’t such a terrible teacher after all. The students seemed to have liked my first lesson, anyway!

I knew that I had some animal lovers in the classroom, so when class started by watching a video of a puppy, much of the class sang in a chorus of “awww”s. We moved into a discussion about what a person does with his or her voice or body to show that they are upset, tying into the previous lesson.

As the lesson progressed, I felt terribly boring. I was letting my nerves get to me, and I felt that I was doing nothing but repeating myself and overemphasizing things. As we moved into the later activities of the lesson, students seemed to be more engaged, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing. I was so afraid that I would forget a step in my lesson that I wasn’t letting the students inspire me to try certain points in my lesson differently or skip steps entirely. I wasn’t letting the students lead—I was driving the lesson. That’s exactly what this lesson was missing—inspiration! The lesson stumbled along, lacking the momentum for the steps to flow together. I was trying too hard.

Despite my unsatisfactory feelings, the lesson ended on a good note, and I left a room full of excited students with smiling faces. I was anxious to try again the next week, hoping to redeem myself from this rather unpleasant lesson.

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LESSON PLAN:

Casey Greenwood

BYU Arts Bridge

4^th Grade

LESSON 2: Voice

LESSON OBJECTIVE: Students will demonstrate their ability to use their voice effectively by portraying a variety of emotions in a vocal “Hot Potato” game.

MATERIALS NEEDED: Computer, Internet, and sound system access, simple sentence ideas, emotion index cards, white board and markers

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HOOK: Play a video of a crying puppy as the students are walking into class.

Step 1

TRANSITION: Invite the students to write down an answer to the following question: How did the puppy make you feel? After writing down an answer, have them share what they wrote with those at their table. Ask the students questions such as: What was the puppy doing that made you feel that way? Answers may include that it was whining/crying.

Step 2

MODEL: Invite the students to show how a human whines.

Step 3

DISCUSSION: Ask the students questions such as: When could someone whine in real life? Do we ever use our voices in other ways to portray something to others? When might we do this? What might we do with our voice in these situations?

Step 4

MODEL: Have the students listen to the "Scared Chinese Girl" video. Ask the students questions such as: What did you hear? What can you tell me about this person? Answers might include age, gender, etc. How do you think he feels? Have the students listen to a clip from the Celtic Woman song “Téir Abhaile Riú.”

Step 5

DISCUSSION: Ask the students questions such as: What did you hear? What can you tell me about the first girl based off of her voice? Answers may include that she was young, carefree, kind, gentle, laid back, etc. What was it about her voice that made us feel this way? Answers may include her vocal trills, she sang slowly, had a more breathy, softer tone, etc. What can you tell about the second girl based off of her voice? Answers may include that she was angry or jealous, etc. What was it about her voice that made us feel this way? Answers may include that she was singing louder and faster than the first girl, annunciating more, etc. What was the relationship between the two girls based off of what we could hear in their voices? Answers may include that they were arguing about something, don’t like each other very much, etc.

Step 6

MODEL: Ask a student what he or she ate for dinner last night. Ask another student to give you an emotion, and say “I had … for dinner last night,” portraying the food and emotion that the students gave you. Have another student give you another emotion and repeat the exercise once more. Ask the students questions such as: What was different about the two performances? What did I do to my voice to portray the emotion?

Step 7

GROUP PRACTICE: Write a simple sentence on the white board. Provide each table of students with two emotion index cards. Students at a table will choose one emotion to apply to this simple sentence first and, after practicing, will stand up and recite it altogether for the class to watch. Students will do the exercise again with the emotion listed on the other index card.

Step 8

CHECKING FOR UNDERSTANDING: Ask the students questions such as: What emotion was your favorite to portray? Why? What did you do to portray that emotion in your voice? Did your body change at all when you changed your voice? Why does changing your physicality along with your voice make an emotion more believable? Answers may include: Because that’s what we do in real life!

Step 9

ASSESSMENT: Stand in a circle. Write a new simple sentence on the white board. Explain that each person in the circle will repeat the sentence and pass it along as quickly as possible, one person repeating after another. Have a practice round once with no emotion. Next, add an emotional layer on it, such as excitement or sadness. Repeat with a few different emotions as time allows, allowing students to choose the emotion with each new round.

LESSON SUPPLEMENTS:

Crying puppy video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1pxFUCQ3gg

"Scared Chinese Girl" video link: https://youtu.be/gvfR0PVNsvM

Celtic Woman video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g7XO7gICAo (0:00-1:12)

Simple sentence ideas:

I went to the store yesterday.

We’re going to play basketball at recess.

Pizza was served at lunch today.

My brother is doing his homework.

Lesson 1: Movement

“So often you find that the students you’re trying to inspire are the ones that end up inspiring you.” –Sean Junkins

I didn’t know what to expect the first time I saw my 4th graders. But somehow I felt a deep dedication to them and desire to see them grow from the first time I saw their curious, smiling faces. Whatever it was that these children needed, I would help to give it to them. Inspiring is my goal—theatre is my tool.

Our first lesson was on movement. Having just come in from recess, I knew that the children would prefer to keep moving. What better way to help them get out their extra wiggles and eventually come to a slow stop than a game of “follow the leader”? I wanted the kids to experiment with their bodies—really get to know their wingspan and all the wonderful ways that they can move. I wanted them to be creative! We went from strictly “do what the leader is doing” to generating our own ideas based of a general guideline and moving our bodies based off of a category of movement such as “slow” or “big.” Eventually we started morphing concepts into “fast and big” or “small and slow,” etc.

Students explored physical levels and tempos in a "follow the leader" game.

After the opening activity, we had a great discussion about when a person might try to be big or small with his or her body, and the students had great insights about why a person would do such—especially when being pursued by a predator, metaphorically or otherwise. This turned into a rather tender discussion about bullying and how it makes a person feel. In addition, we discussed not only when a person might feel small, but when a person might feel big as well.

This discussion really opened my eyes to not only how unique and insightful my students are, but also showed me the things that they are struggling with and worrying about. I am now more aware of insecurities that my students may have and how to help them to blossom through theatre.

Throughout the remainder of the lesson, I was amazed at not only how creative my students were, but how willing most of my students were to do crazy things and not care if others were watching. I can tell that my students are only going to get better and wiser from here!

Students tried to guess each other's emotion during the "emotion charades" game.

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LESSON PLAN:

Casey Greenwood

BYU Arts Bridge

4^th Grade

Characterization Unit

Lesson 1: Movement

Objective: Students will demonstrate their ability to use their bodies to portray situations effectively by participating in a game of charades.

Materials needed: Charades cards (1 per student)

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Hook: Students enter the classroom to a game of “follow the leader.” The leader will guide the students to explore different levels and styles of movement as well as movement tempos with their bodies.

STEP 1

Discussion: Ask the students questions such as: What were some of the actions that you did or noticed others doing? Which actions were easiest for you to do? What made them easy? Answers may include: didn’t take up a lot of space, was a comfortable tempo, etc. Which were hardest? What made those actions hard? Answers may include: not able to go fast enough, slow enough, or low or high enough, not enough space to spread out enough, etc.

STEP 2

Transition: Do you think people would ever do these actions in real life? When/why do you think they would use them?

STEP 3

Model: Invite a student to move your arms and/or legs to put you in a weird position. Ask the students to give a reason as to why you might be in that position in a scene. What were/are you doing? Have the students ask “What are you doing?” and give a response that is different than what the students suggested to show them that there are many different possibilities- there isn’t one right answer. They are free to use their imaginations.

STEP 4

Group Practice: Have the students get in groups of three. One student will put another student in an odd position. The third student will ask the second student, “What are you doing?” and the second student will answer the question, justifying his or her position. Take turns until each student has had a turn in each role.

STEP 5

Transition: Would you move differently if you were really excited? What might that look like? What if you were really tired?

STEP 6

Individual Practice: Give a charades card to each student. Instruct them not to let anyone see their card. The students are to practice using their whole body to portray what is written on their card.

STEP 7

Assessment: Stand in a circle and have each student perform what was written on his or her card, inviting the class to guess what the emotion was.

STEP 8

Conclusion: Invite the students to watch those around them and see how each person moves a little differently. Tell them to pay special attention to how their movement changes based on what happens around and to them. Tell them to try to notice how others may be feeling based off of what their bodies are doing.

Supplements:

Ideas for “follow the leader” game:

Jump up and down

Clap your hands

Take big steps

Walk quickly

Take tiny steps

Walk like a chicken

Dance

Shake your head

Walk sideways

Hop on one foot

Crawl

Skip

Walk backwards

Spread out

Walk on tip-toes

On index cards, write the following for charades cards:

Cold

Sad

Scared

Happy

Angry

Disgusted

Overjoyed

Hot

Amazed