Video/New Media Workshop Lesson Plans (part five)

Characters in Narrative Writing and Play Acting

Objective:

Participants will explore Narrative form threw play acting with puppets and shoe box sets.

Materials:

Shoe boxes, small boxes, construction paper, craft glue, hot glue, pom-poms, feathers, scissors, old gloves, googley eyes, yarn, ribbon buttons, tissue paper, pipe cleaners, fabric, collage papers, old photographs, pop sickle sticks, old fashioned cloths pens, card board.

Motivation/ Inspiration: If I were any character who would I be? How would I act? Would I be a human? Would I be and animal? Would I be and object, like a house or a baseball or a chare? What special powers would I have? Would I behave differently when I was sad/ happy/ excited/ angry/ confused/ nervous/ scared? How would the character differ form my actual self? Would my character have any talents? What types of people/ animals/ monsters/ or creatures would your character hang out with? What type of stories would your character be in? Where will your character live? What will my characters eat? What will they say to each other?

Warm-Up:

Draw a design for your set. Draw your characters. Discussion about traditional narrative structure.

                                 Activity:

Participants will write a brief traditional narrative. They will be instructed to keep plot, characters, setting in mind. After writing for 10 to 20 minutes participants will move on to create a mini set out of a shoe box and some puppets based off of characters from there writings. Some puppet making techniques will be discussed. When the sets and puppets are completed students will perform their narrative for a camera. There finished narrative should be no longer then 2-5 minutes. Note: this class may take more then one session depending on the time needed to write and create.

Follow-up:

Personal art experience journaling exercise: Participant should write one to ten lines about their experience in class. Sample questions to answer: What was my favorite thing about today’s class? What did I not enjoy about today’s class? What are 3 things I learned? What are 3 things I am proud of? How did I feel after today’s class? Is there any thing that I want to state about my art piece? Note: if the child is not developmentally capable of writing it is encouraged that the child draw a picture or verbalize what they would like to be written and it be transcribed by a volunteer.

Historical/Conceptual Notes:

A puppet is an inanimate object or representational figure animated or manipulated by a puppeteer. It is usually - but by no means always - a depiction of a human character, and is used in puppetry, a play or a presentation that is a very ancient form of theatre. The puppet undergoes a process of transformation through being animated, and is normally manipulated by at least one puppeteer.There are many different varieties of puppets, and they are made of a wide range of materials, depending on their form and intended use. They can be extremely complex or very simple in their construction. They may even be found objects. As Oscar Wilde wrote, "There are many advantages in puppets. They never argue. They have no crude views about art. They have no private lives".