Class Level: Intermediate Class; 80-Minute Class Period

Storytelling by Emily Ray

Objective: Students will demonstrate their ability to tell stories and convey imagery by telling a children’s story.

Class Level: Intermediate class; 80-minute class period

Main Concepts: facial expression, vocal expression, energy, movement

1994 National Standards:

CONTENT STANDARD 2: Acting by developing, communicating, and sustaining characters in improvisations and informal or formal productions.

CONTENT STANDARD 6: Comparing and integrating art forms by analyzing traditional theatre, dance, music, and visual arts, and new art forms.

CONTENT STANDARD 8: Understanding context by analyzing the role of theatre, film, television, and electronic media in the past and the present.

Description:This unit can be used in any theatre class at any level of experience.

Lesson Plans

Lesson 1: Storytelling – Day 1

Students will demonstrate their ability to tell stories using body and movement by pantomiming a fairy tale for the class.

Lesson 2: Storytelling – Day 2

Students will demonstrate their ability to tell stories using voice and body to convey imagery by participating in activities and telling a children’s story.

Lesson 3: Storytelling – Day 3

Students will demonstrate their ability to tell stories using voice and body to convey imagery by participating in activities and telling a children’s story.

Lesson 4: Final Performance – Day 4

Students will demonstrate their ability to tell stories and convey imagery using voice and body by exemplifying facial expression, vocal expression, energy, movement, and complete commitment to story by telling a children’s story.

Storytelling – Day 1

Objective

Students will demonstrate their ability to tell stories using body and movement by pantomiming a fairy tale for the class.

Lesson Directions

Anticipatory Set/Hook

Brainstorm with the class the various ways that we use movement in everyday life to communicate certain ideas. For example: nodding our head means yes, curling an index finger can indicate we want a person to come to us, putting a finger to your lips means be quiet, waving a hand means hello or good-bye, etc.

Instruction

Step 1: Transition – Explain that by using certain gestures we can communicate without using words.
Instruction – Explain to the students that similarly, pantomime is a tool to help actors tell a story without words. Discuss that pantomime helps create an image for the performer and the audience of something that is not actually there.

Guided Practice - Have students form a circle and instruct them that they will be tossing around an imaginary ball. Lead the students at first, modeling how you would adapt your movement according to the size and weight of the ball. Pretend to use a tennis ball at first. Bounce it, squeeze it, and toss it in the air. Have students copy these actions. Now switch to a golf ball, a basketball, a bowling ball, a beach ball, etc., adapting your movement accordingly. Have the class follow your actions, or have student volunteers lead the different movement. Do this for about five minutes.
Step 2: Checking for Understanding - Discuss with students how they adapted their movement each time the shape and weight of the ball changed. Discuss whether the activity was challenging, and if so, why. Have students continue to practice the skill of pantomime in their own space in the classroom with objects and actions that they use in everyday life. As they pantomime, students should follow the imaginary object/action with their eyes and show what happens when they are finished with the object/action. Some good everyday objects/actions for this activity include: peeling a banana, eating a piece of pizza with lots of cheese, sipping a drink through a straw, and picking up a coin. End the game after about five minutes. Discuss what students observed about their own movements and those of others. What was interesting? What was challenging?
Step 3: Instruction – Explain that we might interact with objects differently than a character in a story depending on our experience and personality. Another part of telling stories is using our body and movement to create characters and situations different from us. How our character(s) pantomimes everyday interactions helps in this development.

Checking for Understanding - Add character to the everyday actions just completed in the previous activity. Call out the action and the character. Have students repeat all the above actions as if they are: three years old, an old person, an angry person, a person who is out on a sweltering day, a suspicious person, and a person in a hurry. Then discuss with the students what changed as they completed each movement.
Step 4: Guided Practice – Divide the class into 5 different groups. Each group will be assigned a different fairy tale (Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Snow White, Jack and the Beanstalk, or Rumpelstiltskin), which they must create a pantomime of to share with the class. Give the students time to practice and clarify the plot if they need to. Then have them perform for the class.
Step 5: Closure – Discuss with the students what they observed from telling the stories only using pantomime. Tell them they need to bring a children’s story for tomorrow’s class.

Assessment

Pantomime performances

Storytelling – Day 2

Objective

Students will demonstrate their ability to tell stories using voice and body to convey imagery by participating in activities and telling a children’s story.

Lesson Directions

Anticipatory Set/Hook

Tell the students you’re sure they are curious about how beaver got his tail. Proceed to tell the “story” using imagery and physicalization.

Instruction

Step 1: Transition – Discuss storytelling versus speeches. What makes a good storyteller? (movement, good facial expression, voices, energy, complete commitment, etc.)

Instruction – Have the students get in groups of 2. Have them think of something “cool” they have at home. Have them describe it to their partner without telling them what it is. Remind them of texture, color, shape, size, etc.

Guided Practice – Have the students tell their stories to each other.
Step 2: Transition – Discuss how things went. Was it harder than they thought?

Instruction – Have the students make two lines so they are facing across from their partner. Tell them they will be trading spots with their partner and as they pass them they will be saying hello. However, line A is only allowed to say 1-2-3-4 and line B is only able to answer 5-6-7-8.

Modeling – Demonstrate with one student how to trade spots with the lines.
Guided Practice – Students will perform the activity given different roles as they trade places. Example: A’s and B’s are best friends. A’s and B’s aren’t really friends, but haven’t seen each other in a long time. A’s are nerdy kids and B’s are popular and being polite in the hall. A’s are teachers and B’s are students turning in a late paper. A’s are fans and B’s are rock stars. A’s are jocks and B’s are the cheerleaders in love with them. A’s are actors and B’s are bossy directors. A’s and B’s are spies exchanging information in an airport. A’s and B’s are arch enemies. Etcetera.
Step 3: Transition – Discuss with students how voice and body help them tell their story. By adding lines you’re adding another dimension.

Instruction – With their partner, have the students tell each other a story from their childhood (either an embarrassing one or one where they got injured). Remind them of space, imagery, body, etc.

Guided Practice – Have the students tell their stories to their partners. Then ask if anyone wants to nominate their partner to share their story with the class. Have a few students tell their story for the whole class. Discuss how they told their story and why it was successful and what they could improve on.
Step 4: Guided Practice – Have the students get out their children’s story and make a list of all the imagery in their story that will aid in their telling of it.

Assessment

Have the students turn in their papers.

Storytelling – Day 3

Objective

Students will demonstrate their ability to tell stories using voice and body to convey imagery by participating in activities and telling a children’s story.

Lesson Directions

Anticipatory Set/Hook

Share a children’s story with the class. Some examples might include: Where the Wild Things Are, The Paper Bag Princess, and Jack and the Giant Beanstalk.

Instruction

Step 1: Transition – Discuss successful and unsuccessful elements of the way the story was told. Was it interesting? Why? Why not?

Guided Practice – Have the students get into groups of 2. Write on the board the line: “Slowly, deliberately, the ax murderer reached for…” Remind them to use things we discussed that made the story effective at the beginning of class. Have the students say the line to each other filling in what the ax murderer reached for (ex: “Slowly, deliberately, the ax murderer reached for another paper towel). Ask if anyone would like to nominate their partner to share their interpretation of the line with the class. Have a few students share for the whole class.
Step 2: Transition – Discuss the things that worked when telling the line (voice, body, facial expressions, etc.) to remind the students of what happened in the previous lesson.

Instruction – Discuss how these things help an actor (stay focused, energy to keep audience attention, staying in character, etc.). Have the students get into groups of four and work on telling their stories to each other.

Guided Practice – Have the other students fill out an evaluation with three things they could do to improve and 3 things that worked well.

Assessment

Have the students turn in their evaluations.

Final Performance – Day 4

Objective

Lesson Directions

Instruction

Lead students in a warm-up.

Then have them tell their stories and evaluate them based on the following scale:

Storytelling Grading Rubric
Does the student exemplify the following?
Facial expression 10
Vocal expression 10
Energy 10
Movement 10
Complete commitment to the story 10
TOTAL (50)