Retelling Stories: Setting and Storyboarding
Can You Hear Me Now?
Click here to download Grade 2 Theatre Lesson 7 (PDF)
Objectives:
- Students will demonstrate understanding of scene as important events in a story and create a storyboard.
- As actors, students will create appropriate movement to show setting through improvisational activities.
7A. Warm up:
The classroom teacher leads the warm up for the class and includes the “zap” exercise of body movement, voice, breathing, and speed (students respond to a prompt involving a countdown rather than a bean-bag toss in this video clip).
Note: This game can be played as a warm-up using a bean-bag for students to toss to each other for each subsequent lesson. Options: Play the same type of game using a body movement instead of a sound or, play “Pass the Clap”: a game where students stand in a circle and one at a time, toss or “shoot” (as in basketball) a clap to another student as quickly as they can. This game takes concentration and focus.
Grade 2 Theatre Lesson #7: Warm up [13:45 minute Video]
7B. Homework:
The classroom teacher reviews the students’ demonstrations of their homework for “The Three Little Pigs.” Their version includes improvising the parts of the three houses as well as some additional characters such as a passing cat and dog.
The teaching artist reviews their work for the effectiveness of using pantomime, tableau, and vocalization.
Grade 2 Theatre Lesson #7: Homework [3:07 minute Video]
7C. Guided Practice with Vocabulary:
The teaching artist discusses how alteration of the voice can enhance how an actor communicates. The first vocabulary word involves volume and the extremes of quiet and loud. The second vocabulary word involves pitch and the extremes of soft and harsh.
Students work as partners to explore both alternatives in separate exercises.
The teaching artist then has them apply alterations of volume and pitch to communicate certain conditions or emotions such as being cold or feeling ill. Emphasis is on clarity and how the sounds will enhance gestures, posture, and facial expressions as well.
Options:
- Have students say a short word. (e.g., yes, no, oh, ah, etc.).
- Add emotions to it. (e.g., happy, scared, sad, questioning, silly, shy, afraid, etc.)
- Assign partners or small groups a rhyme or meaningless line of text. (e.g., “I want you to take this.” “Where are my keys?” “I don’t think so.”, etc.)
- Ask students to make meaning of the words by coloring them with expression. (e.g., Consider how the word “yes” changes its meaning when you add emotions to it.)
- Perform for the class and have the audience guess what feeling is being used and/or who is saying the rhyme or line.
Grade 2 Theatre Lesson #7: Guided Practice [8:32 minute Video]
7D. Debriefing and Evaluation:
The teaching artist helps the students reflect on their performance and how they could continue to work on improvements.
Grade 2 Theatre Lesson #7: Debriefing and Evaluation [2:45 minute Video]
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