Arts Response: Lesson Plan

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Week Six: Family Photos

Student Outcome Statement: Arts Response - Level Two – Makes observations about features and elements of own arts works and those of others and uses given frameworks in

Reflecting: Students reflect on the processes they use and observe, describing their feelings about their work, giving reasons for their choices. They keep a record of drama experiences, using given frameworks to identify specific elements and features of their own drama and the drama of others: for example, they describe the structure and drama elements used in own or others’ performance and discuss what was effective and what could be improved.

 -         Arts Ideas – Level Two

Contexts: Students recognise dramatic works from other times and places and can offer reasons how or why these are different to their community’s dramatic works. They begin to establish relationships between the type of drama and the main features that place it within that category, such as occasion, costumes, acting style or performance space.

Teaching/Learning Purposes/Objectives: To enable students to:

*        Discuss a number of common elements in Commedia dell’ arte

*        Reflect on specific elements in comparison with their own examples

*        Evaluate the effectiveness of, and create an approach to improve their work

Background planning and requirements[1]

Major Purpose: To allow students to reflect on their character development

Key Question: How does my character communicate to the audience?

The Hook: Imagine you’re on stage during a mime festival.

- What’s happening? You’re expected to perform for the crowd

- Who’s it happening to? Yourself as a mime artist

- Where is it happening? At a special outdoors concert in Fremantle

- When is it happening? This weekend

- What’s at stake? You must communicate to your audience without using words. If you cannot physically communicate to the audience, they will not understand what you are ‘saying’ through your movement.

Resources:

*        Video examples of Commedia dell’ arte

*        Examples of character profiles

*        Computer lab, or basic access to computers

Lesson description

- Warm-ups – a variety of warm-ups could be introduced here, however, as the first section is looking at Commedia dell’ arte examples, an energetic start may be necessary.  Perhaps a game like ‘family portraits’,[2] where students are asked to create portraits based on a group of accountants, pop stars or alike. Such a warm-up is also working up to the major activity of the lesson.

- Class Discussion – Start verbally introducing aspects of Commedia dell’ arte, stating that the character’s movement is important and, to a degree, a greater focus of the performance. Introduce the ‘Hook’, and ask students to create a one-minute scene performing a daily or domestic activity.

- Computer Work – Assuming that students are currently working on their own individual pieces, students would be asked to create a character profile based on their character’s name. By typing the name into an image search in Google, students would be expected to choose one of the pictures that appears. From that, students will develop a detailed biography of likes and dislikes, where they work etc.

- Focus – The biography must include…

-         Character’s name, address and place of work

-         Martial status and/or number of children

-         Likes and dislikes

-         Their goals and aspirations

-         A specific event for your character to reach, or challenge, their goal

- Small group activity – Students will now break into small groups and present their character profiles with others in their group. Students will then be asked to perform a two-minute mime scene with the other students in their group. The theme of family photo is now realised, as students will be expected to create the scene of a disordered and chaotic family; moments before a photographer takes a photo. The focus is for students to interact with each other, yet mime the interactions (both positive and negative) with other members of their ‘family’. The teacher will give a ten second call to communicate the scene is about to finish, and call out click when the ‘Family Photo’ is ‘taken’.

- Individual reflection – Using the experience of the ‘family photo’, students are expected to reflect on some questions about their interactions in the scene. Stress a need for students to think about connections to Commedia dell’ arte, through either video comparison, a reworking of verbal information or a comparison to their own work.

- Questions  -

-         Which characters did your character like in the scene? Why do you like them?

-         What movements directed to that character communicated your friendship?

-         Which character did you not like in the scene? Why do you dislike them?

-         What movements directed to that character communicated your hatred?

-         Why did your character’s movement work in the scene?

-         What elements of your character’s likes or dislikes did you fail to communicate in the scene? Were these elements important?

-         How would you ensure that your movement could communicate to your audience better next time?

Evaluation of student’s written (and verbal) reflection

·        Were students able to contribute to discussions on Commedia dell’ arte?