Anything Goes : Another one of my genius Lesson Plans. This one is for Acting Class... by Jessica Marie Padilla

Want: A Lesson Plan for Working Tactics, Objectives, and Obstacles Description of Participants: Students upper elementary level, have been exploring the art of acting through Creative Drama and Theatrical Games. They have briefly defined what objective, tactic, and obstacle are via tableaus, improv, and discussion. Today they will be implementing that learning with scene work. Student Objectives: Review objective, tactic, and obstacle Define Action Write three song lyrics down State name and Decide what they want (out of class today) Create a scene with character and relationship from song lyrics Find the objective, obstacle, and tactic for each scene Review conflict Analyze relationship conflicts through further work on song lyric scenes Teacher will begin class, “Today we will be talking about ‘wants’.” Write the words Objective, Tactic, Obstacle, and Action on the board. (Define as: Objective - What you want, Tactic - How you get what you want, Obstacle - What is in the way of what you want, And Action (the new word) What you do to get what you want.) Transition: Students are asked to make a circle in the center of the room. Teacher passes out a sheet of paper and a marker to each student. Title of Exercise Lyric Limits Grade/Age Level 4th grade or higher Time needed 12 minutes Materials required One sheet of paper, a marker, and a hat Students are then asked to write three song lyrics on the paper provided and tear the paper into three parts, one lyric on each strand. Then place in the paper pieces into the hat in the center of the circle to be shuffled. Next, students will play a version of Celebration! While the students are still in the circle Instructions: Students go around the circle creating a ‘Want’ statement - completeling the sentence, “I am...” “and today I want...” - This can be made more specific by asking what they want out of class, instead of in general. Ex: “I am Ms. Jess and today I want … to have class outside.” and on to the next person until all have said who they are and what they want today. Note - this can be as ambiguous as a student want, some of my students say, ‘fly with the unicorns.’ It’s just a warm-up. Transition: After everyone in the circle has introduced themselves and made their want statement, Teacher pairs them off into groups of two and explains the activity ‘Lyrics Limits’ Lyric Limits Instructions: Students choose three strips of paper and are given 5 minutes to create AND rehearse a scene with the words. Teacher: be sure to mention you want to see character and relationships in their scenes. Discussion 10 minutes: Students perform scene and the class as whole finds the objective, tactic, obstacle and action for each scene presented. Teacher can write the results on paper or on the board. Transition: Redefine conflict and why it is an intrical part of drama. Students will then list relationships from the scenes they made as examples for the final exercise. Teacher writes them on the board (like in last class, only this time we have scene examples to pull from from the lyric engagement) Title of Exercise Conflict Roles Time needed 15 minutes Materials required none, only previous scene work Instructions: Students will break into groups of four and devise a scene based on a relationship from the Lyric game . Two people being the actors, and the other two in charge of devising an obstacle and an action. If time allows students can switch roles. Students must create the dialogue and action. And final scenes must have a beginning, middle, and end. And be about 1-2 min long. (so students are given a relationship between two people. two people will be responsible for the acting, one for creating their objectives, and the other for creating their obstacles.) Finale: Students perform conflict role scenes