Since most of the students made the effort to write scripts for their news broadcasts in the previous lesson, I wanted to help them to become a little more comfortable with improvisation and building characters based on what they were experiencing in a given moment in a scene. (However, looking back, I wish I would have given them more time to work with scripts first and become more comfortable with acting in general...) Thus, I created this characterization unit which later leads to a science-integration character development lesson using rocks as inspiration!
I was not present for the first lesson, so I sent the classroom teacher my initial lesson plan (which was a mixture of the first and second lessons posted here) and adjusted my next lesson based on how far she got.
The second lesson didn't exactly go according to plan or how I imagined it to be... I suppose I need to be better at thinking of all the variables or being more specific in my direction. I need to keep in mind that these students have never done anything like this ("this" being
acting) before. The students were very creative, engaged, and were creating wonderful character interactions with various items in the Invisible Box game, but it seems that in various lessons, whenever I send students off to interact with each other or the world in character it just sorta turns into mass chaos...
At the end of the second lesson, we did a really memorable activity in which the students were mice that were silently hiding in a library. If we heard or saw any mice, the classroom teacher and I acted as the "Librarians" that would try and "exterminate" the mice. If a mouse was tagged, he/she was out and was asked to go sit in a separate location, read, or just watch the game. I wish that I would have given the mice some sort of objective or task to do other than just being quiet, because it was up to the troublemakers to actually get this game started, hahaha. However, fortunately the students loved this game and have asked me on two separate occasions if we can play another game like this. However, while this game was fun, unfortunately we lost the characterization in favor of the competition... I gave the students objectives in the other characterizations that we did (i.e. a pirate searching for treasure on the beach. We even designated that desks would be palm trees, books would be treasure, and chairs would be doors, etc.) but I suppose it may have been too much to think about how a character would interact with the world
and how a character would move/sound. This is probably why it sorta seemed like chaos--maybe the students were overwhelmed or not exactly sure how to complete the task!
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LESSON 1: CHARACTERIZATION 1 (30 minutes)
4TH GRADE
STANDARDS:
Drama
Standard 4.T.CONNECT.3:
Observe, listen, and respond in character to other actors throughout a scripted or improvised scene.
OBJECTIVE: Students will understand the concept of character by portraying various characters interacting with a particular environment.
Have the students stand in a circle and, starting with the teacher, pass an invisible ball clockwise around the circle. Keep going until you feel satisfied, changing the size and weight of the ball as the game goes on (ie sart with something small and grow to something big and heavy).
Next, pass the ball around the circle again, but this time everyone becomes a different character (the ball can be whatever size each person wants it to be to bring their character to life). Invite them to think about how that changes the way they pass the ball. Call out different characters as the ball is passed around. For example, if you say “fairy” perhaps they will float on their tippy toes and pass a small lightweight ball with their fingertips. Perhaps if you say “robber” they will hide the ball and run to pass it to their neighbor.
Other ideas:
Pirate
Weightlifter
Superhero
Dog
Clown
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LESSON 2: CHARACTERIZATION 2 (30 minutes)
4TH GRADE
STANDARDS:
Drama
Standard 4.T.CONNECT.3:
Observe, listen, and respond in character to other actors throughout a scripted or improvised scene.
OBJECTIVE: Students will understand the concept of character by portraying various characters interacting with a particular environment.
MATERIALS: Projector, white board, markers
Step 1: Hook.
Have the students sit on the carpet in a circle. Invite them to join you in a game: One by one they will open an invisible box and pull out an invisible item that they will use. For example, I could open the invisible box and pull out an invisible violin to play! No weapons. Pass the box around the circle and one by one take turns opening the box.
Step 2: Change Up!
After everyone has had a turn, choose a character such as a pirate, fairy, weightlifter, etc. and pass around the box again. Have them pull out an item that the character might use. Change the character every so often so that there aren’t a lot of repeat items as the “box” is passed around the circle.
Step 3: Group Practice.
Now that they’ve thought about what items different characters would use and how they would use them, invite them to think about how different characters would interact with their surroundings. Write a list of characters from the box game on the whiteboard. Project the photos onto the whiteboard one by one (see LESSON SUPPLEMENTS). As each photo is projected, choose one of the characters from the box game and ask the students to speak with a carpet buddy about what the character might do in that setting. For example, if you were a pirate at the playground you might capture the playground for yourself and raise a pirate flag up above it. If you were a fairy at the library you might hide from people in-between books on a shelf. If you were a weightlifter at the beach, perhaps you would lift whales instead of barbells! After they have discussed with a neighbor, invite them to raise their hands and share their ideas and what they talked about with their carpet buddy with you and the rest of the class.
Step 4: Put it on its feet!
Have the class vote on one of the photos. Set up the classroom as if it were that location and talk about what items could represent various things in the chosen environment. For example, if the chosen environment was the beach, desks could represent palm trees, and books could be set on the desks to represent coconuts. The carpet could represent water. Etc. After establishing the environment, invite them to choose a character from the list on the whiteboard and interact with the created environment as the character they have chosen.
LESSON SUPPLEMENTS:
