Acting inferences

1. Acting inferences Using drama to develop inferring skills

2. Context • Anoka Middle School for the Arts • Sixth Grade ILA (Integrated Language Arts) - required • Suburban • 86% white, 6.7% black • 30.8% Free/Reduced Price Lunch

3. Incorporating drama techniques in ila • Because AMSA is an arts magnet school, all teachers are encouraged and expected to integrate the arts as often as possible in all content areas. • For the 2012 – 2013 school year, sixth grade ILA partnered with the Stepping Stone Theatre in St. Paul to integrate acting and drama techniques within our already jam-packed curriculum.

4. MN State Standards addressed • Reading Benchmarks, Literature – Key Ideas & Details 6.4.1.1 Cite textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. • Reading Benchmarks, Literature – Key Ideas & Details 6.4.3.3 Describe how a particular story’s or drama’s plot unfolds in a series of episodes as well as how the characters respond or change as the plot moves toward a resolution. • Reading Benchmarks, Literature – Craft & Structure 6.4.5.5 Analyze how a particular sentence, chapter, scene, or stanza fits into the overall structure of a text and contributes to the development of the theme, setting, or plot. • Writing Benchmarks – Text Types & Purposes 6.7.3.3 Write narratives and other creative texts to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences. • Speaking, Viewing, Listening and Media Literacy Benchmarks - Comprehension & Collaboration 6.9.2.2 Interpret information presented in diverse media and formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) and explain how it contributes to a topic, text, or issue under study.

5. Student feedback • Students enjoyed this lesson because it gave them a chance to work collaboratively with one another and be active in the classroom.

6. Best practices • “...[T]here exists a multitude of intelligences, quite independent of each other; that each intelligence has its own strengths and constraints; that the mind is far from unencumbered at birth; and that it is unexpectedly difficult to teach things that go against early ‘naive’ theories of that challenge the natural lines of force within an intelligence and its matching domains.” – Howard Gardner • Learning through performance heavily addresses the needs of bodily-kinesthetic learners (one of Gardner’s eight intelligences).

7. Best practices (Continued) • This lesson asks students to practice making inferences based on what they see, something that is easier for visual learners than making inferences directly from a text. • Students’ written works in this lesson can be used as a formative assessment to determine their understanding of inferences.

8. And now for the lesson!

9. Jack and Jill • Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. • Jack fell down and broke his crown, and Jill came tumbling after.

10. Some frozen picture basics before we begin • Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits • Actor Neutral • Frozen Pictures (also known as Tableaux) • When time is up, your body AND your voice is frozen. • Try to show what’s happening in your scene with your body AND your face. • Do not break your pose until I ask you to.

11. Now it’s time to move! • Each one of you is going to get a playing card. • When I say, “Go!” get up and find the other people in the classroom whose card type matches your own (ex: If my card is a Queen, I’m going to find everyone else who also has a Queen). Bring your writing journal and something to write with. • In the end we should have five different groups. • Once you’re with your group, introduce yourself and share with your group your favorite thing that you did over the Fourth of July weekend.

12. Beginning, middle, end • As a group your first task is going to be to divide the story of Jack and Jill into three parts: Beginning, Middle and End. You will have one minute to discuss with your group what happens in the beginning, middle and end of the story. • Now that your story is divided up, you are going to act out each part (one part at a time) in the form of frozen pictures. I’ll give you two minutes to decide what your frozen picture showing the beginning of the story is going to look like and who in your group is going to be doing what. When time is up, you should be in your frozen picture.

13. Beginning, middle, end (Continued) • Then the middle... • And now the end!

14. What happens next? • The next part of our acting experience addresses the question, “What happens next?” (aka Jack and Jill: The Sequel). • As a group, you will be given three minutes to decide what would happen next in the story of Jack and Jill, and then plan out your frozen picture. • There actually are another couple of lesser-known verses to this nursery rhyme. If you know them, pretend you don’t. • No death, no gore. • Be creative!

15. Performance time • Each group is now going to have an opportunity to “perform” their frozen picture for the class. • As the groups are presenting, you should be making an inference about what you think the group is showing you. There is no right or wrong answer, and the performing group will not reveal to the class what they intended the scene to be depicting. • You should also be making a mental note about which “What happens next?” frozen picture was the most interesting to you (and no, you cannot choose your own).

16. I thought this was a writing lesson... • Take one more minute to decide which “What happens next?” frozen picture was your favorite. What inferences were you able to make about what was happening? What stood out about it to you? What was interesting about what you saw? • You will now have five minutes to independently write the continuation of Jack and Jill’s story based on the frozen picture you selected. Remember to use what you observed in the frozen picture in your writing.

17. Time to share • Look over what you’ve written. Choose at least one sentence from what you wrote to share with your group. • With your group you should also share one inference that you made about any one of the final frozen pictures.

18. references • Stepping Stone Theatre (http://www.steppingstonetheatre.org) • Minnesota Department of Education (http://education.state.mn.us/mde/index.html) • Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences (http://infed.org/mobi/howard-gardner-multiple-intelligences-and-education/)