UP:AE17.TH.6.3

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.

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

Ways to Explore Imagination:

Students can begin with a reader's theatre piece that can be taken from a stock script or derived from a piece of literature from an English class or a children's book. Readers read from a "script" and reading parts are divided among the readers. No memorization, costumes, blocking, or special lighting is needed. Suggested links are below:
http://www.teachingheart.net/readerstheater.htm
https://www.readinga-z.com/fluency/readers-theater-scripts/#
http://www.busyteacherscafe.com/literacy/readers_theater.html

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 Standard 2: Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.