What are you doing? Improvisation Game
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This learning activity provided by:
Author:
Jennifer Salvant
System: Hoover City School: Robert F Bumpus Middle School
General Activity Information
Activity ID:
1892
Title: What are you doing? Improvisation Game
Digital Tool/Resource: What are you doing explanation
Web Address – URL:
Overview: This is a warm-up activity to prepare the students to begin to make physical choices and communicate physically, while thinking quickly.
"What are you doing" is a good introduction game to warm up the students physically.
This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.
Associated Standards and Objectives
Content Standard(s):
Arts Education 10) Experiment with various physical choices to communicate character in a drama/theatre work.
Unpacked Content
Artistic Process: Performing
Anchor Standards:
Anchor Standard 4: Select, analyze, and interpret artistic work for presentation.
Process Components: Select
Essential Questions:
EU: Theatre artists make strong choices to effectively convey meaning.
Concepts & Vocabulary:
Vocal
Movement
Characterization
Directing
Design
Theatrical production
Skills Assessed The student improvises, writes, and rewrites monologues, scenes, and vignettes to convey predetermined intent and meaning. Student directors are accountable for small group presentations of a scene or vignette. The director is responsible for incorporating all aspects of a production into a unified whole.
This explores the concepts of production and design by taking the basics and forming a full production. Skill Examples:
Personal Processes and Interpreting a Piece
Given a prompt, a small group of students improvise a scene to be staged within a designated time period. After the improvisation, students discuss ways to better communicate the group's interpretation.
Students then transform the improvisation into a written script that includes stage movements, sound and visual effects, and other details.
Students select a director, actors, and technicians; rehearse; and present the scene. After viewing a recording of their scene, students re-evaluate their effectiveness in achieving their intent, make revisions, and present their scene before the class, which then participates in the evaluative response.
This activity allows students to explore all aspects of the performance and has them evaluate themselves on camera to make changes and artistic choices. Resources for Age Appropriate Plays for Improv Starters
Reflections and Shared Experiences
By utilizing multiple groups, students will be allowed to be both performer and audience member. The students should keep an Actor's Notebook and have several prompts from the teacher being critical of the interactions between an audience and performer. Resources for Journaling and Self Reflection
Learning Objectives: The students will act out various physical activities through this game. The students will warm up and be ready to be physically expressive. The students will experiment physically and make choices quickly.
Strategies, Preparations and Variations
Phase: Before/Engage
Activity: The teacher will divide the students into two separate lines facing each other. The student from one line steps forward and begins pantomiming an activity (brushing teeth). Then the student from the other line steps forward and says, "What are you doing?" The student that began the movement says something completely different from what they are pantomiming (walking my dog). The student that asked, "What are you doing?" then begins to act out whatever was said to them (walking my dog). The next person steps up and says, "What are you doing?" The student then says another completely different activity (white water rafting).
This game gets everyone active and thinking about physical choices. The game gets students engaged and moving their bodies. This would be a good warm-up prior to getting the students to experiment physically with characters they are analyzing/rehearsing.
Assessment Strategies: Are the students saying their activities quickly? This game should have a fast pace. The teacher may need to side coach the students to speed the game up. Are the students really pretending to act out the activity that has been given to them? Are the students getting physically involved in the game and committing fully to the activity? Did everyone in the class participate?
Advanced Preparation: The teacher needs to have a little space for the students to be able to act out their physical activities and space for each group of students to line up.
Variation Tips (optional):
Notes or Recommendations (optional):
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