Day 3: Gesture and Story Elements

Today my objective was that "Students will feel comfortable acting out gestures and understanding the building blocks of a story." This is a critical element is theater because telling stories using non-verbal cues are incredibly useful and come naturally to children as they have grown up playing "pretend". In addition, understanding the elements of a story helps us have a good overview of what is needed to create a story and what to expect!

Materials: Rory’s Story Cubes

I began with my made up "Rules Song" like I have each time. Music is a great way to learn and the students picked up on the song very quickly!

"I have rules, yes I do (repeat)" / "I have rules there are 2" (repeat "she has rules there are two") / First comes good attitude (repeat) / Second is not being rude (repeat) /
"R-E-S-P-E-C-T" (repeat) / "That’s Respect that’s what we’ll be" (repeat).

Warm-Up: 
Review: (10 mins) If there are a few groups that want to practice their different voices from the Horton and Mayzie lesson last week, they can come up and perform first. (Limit 3 groups)

Tableau (15 mins) - Comes from the words “tableau vivant” which translates to living picture

Have students come up one at a time and add into a scene or concept. For example, students could be part of the scenery (like a chair) or could be someone who would be there (a grandfather).
Examples:

• What are you doing at the beach?
• Making cookies in the kitchen
• Playing in PE
• In the library
• At a science fair
• Hawaiian Day

Now try again and show an emotion on your face while doing your activity / or do something different in these settings

Teach: (10 mins) Teach the ROOT of a story using Powerpoint and the example of "Cinderella"

R: Relationships to people, places and things
O: Objectives: What does the character want
O: Obstacles: What stands in their way
T: Tactics: How are they going to get what they want

These are the necessary elements of a story; if a story feels too short, boring or slow it might be because one of these elements are missing.
Link to Google Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1evzaZuIGt7O3zWKCEZSP2_sYM8RB-p3vvwiJx9j5VKU/edit?usp=sharing 

Activity: (10 mins) Come up with a story based on Rory’s story cubes in groups of 3

1. Each group with get one story cube and they will roll in 3X to see which elements they will include in their story

2. Then they will return to their desks and write up a story - making sure it has all the story elements (refer to ROOT).

3. Once they have a story figured out, they must figure out a way to tell the story using 5 Frozen Images (just like Tableau) without words or actions
*Encourage facial expressions and different movements

Perform: (15 mins) We will watch all the different groups and try to determine what their story was about. Ask about the relationships, objectives, obstacles and tactics in each of their short stories.

Reflection: Join as a group and discuss these questions to help solidify what they learned:

• What does a story need? 
• How can we show movement or expression with our bodies?

This was an engaging lesson as students worked together to create very short stories using only their bodies. Drama also lends itself to skills such as cooperation, listening, sharing opinions and being decisive and moving forward with a plan.