Party Game

Learning Resource Type

Learning Activity

Subject Area

Arts Education

Grade(s)

6

Overview

The students will explore improvised characters by participating in a party game.

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit

Phase

During/Explore/Explain
Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 6 - Theatre

AE17.TH.6.3

Explore a scripted or improvised character by imagining the given circumstances in a drama/theatre work.

UP:AE17.TH.6.3

Vocabulary

Vocal
Movement
Characterization

Skills Assessed
  • Sixth graders work collaboratively to plan a dramatization, take part in its production, and discuss the results. They project movement and improvise dialogue in dramas. No prop, sets, or costumes used at this point.
  • The focus for this age group is to expand body awareness and sensory perceptions. Students incorporate their life experiences into dramatic play by creating environments, analyzing characters, and inventing actions to depict chosen life experiences.

Essential Questions

EU: Theatre artists work to discover different ways of communicating meaning.
EQ: How, when, and why do theatre artists' choices change?

Skills Examples

Ways to Explore Imagination: Ways to Create Body Movement with Storytelling:
  • Students can incorporate group storytelling with using the concept of a living pop-up book. Students work in groups of three to five to write an original story and are prepared to act it out with the use of the concept of the Pop Up Book. See the link below:
  • http://www.bbbpress.com/2015/01/drama-game-pop-up-book/
Way to Explore Artistic Choices:
  • For the idea to create their own understanding and opinion of artistic choices, students view live and recorded presentations, identifying dramatic elements such as plot, dialogue, movement, set, costume, and props. Students demonstrate, describe, and illustrate, with examples from the performance(s), a variety of ways a specific character communicates with the audience. Students should be able to articulate these opinions in oral and written form. Below is a great link to comparing acting choices in theatre vs. film. This is a great starting point:
  • https://www.theatrefolk.com/blog/stage-vs-screen-a-comparison-of-acting-techniques/

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 2: Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.

Learning Objectives

The students will explore improvised characters by imagining the given circumstances in a party game.

Activity Details

As the teacher takes volunteers, the student volunteers will be given a piece of paper with a general character. The characters attend an improvised party and the host has to guess their character.

The host identifies which type of party they are having, for example, a birthday party, a pool party, a sports viewing party, a dance party, or a house-warming party.

The teacher sends in each character one at a time. There are as many as three characters on stage at once and an additional host. Once the host guesses the character's identity, the character has to motivate their exit from the party in character.

Assessment Strategies

This activity has a participatory assessment.

Did each student try to act out a host or a party guest?

Background / Preparation

Print out a list of characters for the students to play:

Host's enemy

Host's best friend

Superhero

Lost child

Witch

Pop singer/star

Escaped Prisoner

Detective/Investigator

Artist/Painter

Alien

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