5th Grade Second Visit (September 14th)

This was another brief visit, but I wanted to really reinforce to the students what drama really means. I wanted to drive home the definition we talked about last time with a few concrete activities and examples. Here’s a general outline of what I did:

______________

Lesson Objective: Students will demonstrate and understanding of the definition of drama (using our bodies to tell a story) by acting out different stories as a class.

Protector and shield

·      Bob and weave

·      Shield and campfire.

·      Stay close to shield and campfire until something that’s going to explode gets put into the campfire.   

·      Freeze. Is this very interesting?

Let’s talk about drama. I brought this up last time, but what is it, really? What kinds of things do you think of when you hear drama?

·      Theatre

·      Movies

·      Teenagers

·      Loud people

Drama can be many of these things, but essentially drama is using our bodies to tell a story. Sometimes this means a play or a movie, but there could also be drama in the way we use our voice only, like in radio commercials or in music. Drama could also be in just our bodies like in pantomime or dance. What’s different about drama, though, is that we focus on the story of it all.

What do all good stories need?

·      A beginning

·      A middle

·      An end

·      Rules

·      Conflicts

·      Characters

·      Resolutions

·      An objective

What were these things in the game we played at the beginning of class?

In pairs, I want you to tell each other a 1-2 sentence second story of one fun thing you wanted to do this summer, whether you ended up doing it or not. It could be big or small. For example, my wife and I wanted to visit her sister in California this summer.

Now, I want you to tell each other the story again, but add in one fake obstacle and the way you overcame it that would make the story more interesting. For example, my wife and I wanted to visit her sister in California this summer, but on the way there a dragon flew down from the sky and told us we couldn’t go any further unless we answered three riddles. Luckily, though, the dragon didn’t know about google, so we were able to google all of the answers and he had to let us pass.

Now, only use your body to tell the story. What changes?

5th Grade First Visit (September 4th)

Today was a really straightforward day. I was just visiting the 5^th grade classroom to observe the teacher and students, not to teach. It looks like the students are learning about different types of shapes and angles right now for their math, which I think would be fun to incorporate into my lessons.

The teacher, Mrs. Meiners, gave me a few minutes to introduce myself and explain what I would be doing with the class this semester. I touched on two important concepts that I would be helping the students learn:

1.     Drama means telling a story.

2.     Drama means using your body and voice to tell that story.

I told them that throughout my visits we would keep coming back to these two ideas.

I’m excited to keep working with this class, they seem really excited!