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BYU Theatre Education
Movement Unit

Day 4 – Facial Expressions

August 21, 2025 07:57 PM

by Andrew Walker

National Standard:
TH:Cr3.1.I.b. Explore physical, vocal, and physiological choices to develop a performance that is believable, authentic, and relevant to a drama/theatre work.
TH:Pr5.1.I.a. Practice various acting techniques to expand skills in a rehearsal or drama/theatre performance.

State Standards:

Standard L1.T.CR.5: Explore physical, vocal, and emotional choices to develop a performance that is believable, authentic, and relevant to a drama/theatre work.
Standard L1.T.P.4: Use body to communicate meaning through space, shape, energy, and gesture.

Enduring Understandings:

  1. Students will understand that humans are connected across time and place.
  2. Students will understand that facial expressions communicate.
  3. Students will understand that they are capable.
  4. Students will understand that I want them to succeed.

Essential Questions:

  1. How do we communicate?
  2. What makes a clear facial expression?
  3. How do we tell stories?

Objective:

Students will explore usage of facial expression through telling a story with various levels of facial expression and through a facial expression “competition”.

Materials:

  1. 4 Copies of Facial Expressions PRINT - Printed and cut out
  2. 4 Ziploc Bags holding a set of ^
  3. Large empty space
  4. Drama 1 Daily Question
  5. Projector, Projector Screen, Laptop, HDMI Cable, and HDMI to USB-C adaptor

Instructions:
Hook 1 – Daily Question (10 minutes)

  1. Put the Drama 1 Daily Question up on the board and have the students scan the code and add their answer.
  2. Read off answers and have the student attached to each answer raise their hand and give us a brief reason why they said that.

a. Suggested Question: What’s your favorite emoji?

Hook 2 – Tell Me A Story (No Faces) (15 minutes)

  1. First, have students get into groups of 4-5 people.

  2. “For our first activity, y’all are going to tell a short story, just a few minutes long. BUT, I

    want you to tell it just deadpan. No facial expressions. No vocal levels. Just monotone.”

a. For the last bit of instruction, give examples of being monotone.

  1. Check For Understanding
  2. Then have students tell stories in their groups.

a. I will walk around and assess/check in/help as needed.

  1. About every 2-3 minutes explain that students should be finishing up their story and moving onto the next person.
  2. Once every student has finished, gather back attention.

Instruction (~5 minutes)

  1. “Today, we’re talking about facial expressions. It’s part of the way your body moves and communicates, it’s just specifically your face moving.”
  2. “Facial expressions communicate a lot! And they make things more interesting. Even the choice to have a deadpan expression communicates something and could make things interesting in the right context. If you have the wackiest story you’ve ever heard, and it’s said with a deadpan face, it can be really funny!”
  3. “But most of the time, a deadpan face is not the most interesting choice. Usually, you do want to have facial expressions that help us understand what you’re talking about.”
  4. “Now, if you remember back when we talked about reacting, our facial expressions were a big part of it. Our faces react to the things happening around us. So facial expressions can help us see how your character feels about something happening, and it can help us understand how we as the audience should feel.”
  5. “AND, y’all are capable of making facial expressions. We naturally make them. In fact, scientists have found that there are 6 universal facial expressions that communicate the same emotion across basically all cultures, even people who were born blind. Disgust, sadness, anger, happiness, fear, and surprise.”
  6. “So it’s a human trait to have facial expressions that communicate!”

Tell Me A Story (All Faces) (15 minutes)

  1. “Now, let’s practice using our facial expressions to the other extreme. So we’re going to tell the exact same story, but to a different group. And while last time we were deadpan, this time you’ll be over-the-top using all the facial expressions for your story.”
  2. Now give students time to form new groups of 4-5 people.

  3. “So I want to see everyone using faces that are larger than life! Make everything bigger!

    Make it more fearful, more happy, more sad, more angry, etc.”

  4. Now give students time to tell their stories.

a. I will walk around and assess/check in/help as needed.

  1. Every 2-3 minutes, remind students they should be moving on to the next student.
  2. Once every student has told their story, gather attention again.

Tell Me A Story (No Words) (15 minutes)

  1. “Now, we’re going to tell the same story again, but to another new group! And this time, we’ll be using no words. Only facial expressions and gestures. No mouthing words either.”
  2. “Let’s see how much of the story we can understand when we just use our faces and gestures!”
  3. Now give students time to make new groups.
  4. Then give students time to tell their stories.

a. I will walk around and assess/check in/help as needed.

  1. Every 2-3 minutes, remind students they should be moving on to the next student.
  2. Once every student has told their story, gather attention again.

  3. “Now, chances are you didn’t understand all of the details of the story, but you probably

    got the gist, or at least the emotional journey.”

  4. “So facial expressions are an important tool that helps add to our storytelling!”

Guess That Face Competition (15-20 minutes)

  1. “Now we’re going to do a little competition”

  2. Number students 1-4, and have them get into the group of their number. This will be their

    team for this competition!

  3. “We’re going to play a game of guessing facial expressions! So each group will get a

    ziploc bag of papers with emotions on them. Then, one person from the group will get up in front of their group with the bag. They will pick a paper from the bag and, using only their facial expressions, try to get their group to guess the emotion. They can also use gestures to indicate if the group is close to guessing or not. Once your group guesses the emotion correctly, you will pick a new paper from the bag, and it will continue on like that. Each group will be going at the same time and I will set a timer for a minute and a half. Once the time is up, you’ll count how many you got right!”

    1. Papers: Facial Expressions PRINT
    2. NOTE: Once the group has guessed a paper, don’t put it back in the bag (yet)
  4. Check For Understanding: See if the instructions make sense with a thumbs up or thumbs down. Clarify as needed.

a. NOTE: If teams go through all the papers, have them put all the papers back in the bag and keep going

  1. Then play enough rounds for everyone to get a turn being the person making facial expressions.
  2. If extra time, keep going around!
  3. Once everyone has had a turn,

Wrap Up (5 minutes)

  1. When there’s just a few minutes left in class, wrap up the game!
  2. Count up how many points each group got. The winner gets... nothing! Yay!
  3. After playing, have everyone give themselves a round of applause.

  1. Then explain “So that was a game to explore all the different kinds of facial expressions we can make and how clear we can make them. Y’all know how to do them, just make sure you’re using them and that you don’t forget about them.”
  2. Thank the students for their work today!
Tags
movement