Theatre Game- Clicker

Recently I was asked to help a friend create a theatre game for a lesson he was creating for his high school class. He was planning a lesson concerning genres of film and theatre.


This is what I came up with:

Clicker:

• Write genres on slips of paper that are folded and placed into a bucket.

• Write basic characters, ex. Rude Neighbor, Damsel in Distress, Villain, Dog Lover, Cat Hater, etc... on slips of paper and place them in a separate bucket.

• Decide how many students you want to have in each improv- have each student select a slip out of the character bucket.

• The students are now in a television show/ movie/ onstage... what have you...

• You, or a student of your choice, will have the magical clicker (remote) and genre bucket.

• The holder of the remote will select a paper from the genre bucket and announce it.

• The improv starts and the students have to work their characters into a scene that fits the selected genre. (You can also give a scenario to help this along, or even have a separate scenario bucket.)

• You can make all the selections or have students write submissions for the buckets- less work for you!

• The holder of the remote will either yell "pause!" or "click!"

• If "click!" is yelled out, the remote holder selects a new genre from the bucket and the actors must turn their scene into something that fits the new genre- keeping their characters and scenario.

• If "pause!" is yelled out, new actors select characters and take the stage- the remote holder can choose to replace one, a few, or all of the actors on the stage.

Lesson Plan- G.O.T.E. Sheet

The students were given their monologues a couple of classes ago. Since they have received them, they have read through them and identified the use of mood in their monologues by highlighting the mood changes and writing brief descriptions of what mood is being used and why.  

So, for my second observation I taught a lesson about tactics. 

The following are screenshots of the slides that were projected on the Promethean Board for class:

When students entered the room they found the warm up on the board. They were given 7 minutes write about a goal they have (it didn't have to be scholastically based) and what they were doing or planning on doing to achieve that goal. 

After they wrote their warm ups and a few students shared their work,  I defined the word "tactic" for them and related it back to what they had just written.

I gave the students the following example:

I want a cookie from the jar, which is on a shelf that is too high for me to reach… 

I asked them what I could do to get what I wanted.  

The first reply I heard was, "get a ladder!"

I said "ok, I'll try that!" Then I told them that the ladder broke when I tried to use it and asked them what else I could do… "stand on your friend's shoulders!" I said I would try that, but my friend wasn't home when I called for help. "Ask someone tall!" I asked them whom I should ask and they told me to ask Mrs. Allred for help, so I did. She walked over and pantomimed grabbing a cookie from a jar and handed it to me. SUCCESS! 

Then I explained to the class how when I changed what I was doing to get the cookie, I was changing my tactics. 

Next, students were given 15 minutes to answer their ACE question for the month:

After the 15 minutes were up, I collected the ACE questions and explained how the students would be identifying tactics in their monologues.

Using a sample monologue, as a class we circled words, phrases, or sentences that illustrated the use of new tactics.

For every circle that was made a tactic and correlating objective were written down on a separate sheet of paper.

The students started working on their personal monologues and eventually worked in pairs to complete the assignment and to discuss the different tactics that their characters used.

Next, I introduced the students to G.O.T.E. sheets and provided them with the handout shown above.
As a class, we completed the following G.OT.E. sheet, for the sample monoloue. I then handed out The G.O.T.E. sheets for them to complete for their own monologues.

If students did not complete their G.O.T.E. sheets, they were to be taken home as homework.
If students finished early, they were given time to rehearse their monologues in class.

The purpose of this exercise was to deepen the students' understanding of character analysis and to use this information in their continuing character work.