Micro-Teaching Lesson PlanEducation 2500, Summer Semester 2007

Colleen Trumble

Developing Different Characters to Use During Impov

Objectives:Teacher:

to explain what improv is to explain why it is important to have strong characters in scenes to teach different ways to develop different kinds of characters

Student: To learn what improv entails To understand why strong characters make good scenes To display and demonstrate strong characters in improv games

Materials: Poster with pictures from a University Improv show A large, open space to work in where the class can be loud.

Method:1) Have the students sit on the ground cross-legged

2) Explain the first objective, a short summary of what improv is, then ask if anybody has seen any demonstrations of improv before, if anybody has ask them to share with the class.

3) Ask what qualities the class thinks a good improv scene would have (lead discussion in direction of strong characters)

4) Warm-up Brown Squirrel

5) Party Quirks (some students might know this game from a show called Whose Line is it Anyways?)

Pick one confident student to host the party and send them out of the room

Have four other students volunteer to be the guests at the party. The rest of the class has to choose some sort of weird personality trait or quirk for each of the guests. (the teacher will moderate this and choose one quirk for each person out of the suggestions given)

Call the student host back into the room and then have each of the guests enter the party one at a time.

The host must then try to guess what their weird personality trait or quirk is by the guest’s actions, what they say, their physical body language and how they interact with the other party guests. The guest cannot outright say what their quirk is. Once the host has guessed the guest’s quirk, the guest sits back down in the audience.

6) The Dating Game Pick one female to be the bachelorette (or one male to be the bachelor) Ask them to leave

the room.

Ask for three male volunteers if the bachelorette is female, three female volunteers if the bachelor is male. (Make sure they are different people than who just participated in Party Quirks)

Have the class give each of the contestants on this game show some sort of weird affliction, or character. (The teacher will moderate this and choose the best suggestion)

Call the bachelorette/ bachelor back into the room, and announce them as if they are on a game show. The bachelor/bachelorette must now ask questions, the sort of questions that would be on a dating show to each contestant. The purpose of the game is for the bachelorette/bachelor to figure out what personality trait each person is afflicted with.

After a certain time period, the teacher (who also plays the host of the show) asks the bachelor/bachelorette who they would choose to date. The idea of the game is that the bachelor/bachelorette will say why they don’t want to date each contestant and list the reason why, which ideally should be the weird affliction they have been given.

7) If there is time after this, a fun game to play would be freeze. It works on all skills of improv which is handy. Have the class stand in a circle. Two people start out a scene, making extremely large physical movements, as soon as anybody else in the circle see’s one of the actors in a position where they think they could start a new scene, they yell “freeze” and tap the person whose place they want to take. Then they start a new scene in the exact same position with the other actor. This can go on for however long is needed. Try and make everyone go in the circle once.

8) After the games, tell the students to take a bow, and then have them all applaud for each other.

Assessment/Evaluation:

Participation- Who was willing to volunteer and participate freely and who had to be picked to participate?

Watch the students during the games and make a point of marking them out of five. Based on their physical actions, their verbal choices and how strong/creative their character is.