Inflection

Lesson 3 - Inflection

STANDARD

TH: Cr 3.1.7b. Refine effective physical, vocal, and physiological traits of characters in an improvised or scripted drama/ theatre work.

OBJECTIVE

Students will demonstrate their ability to use voice inflection to deliver meanings by competing in Shakespeares’ insult-off. 

MATERIALS

• Insult off Word List

WARM-UP - ADV

• 2 students will wait outside of the classroom while the rest of the students will pick one adverb, such as happily, desperately, hopefully, etc.
• Then, the two students return to the class and ask one person at a time to do a task in that adverb. The goal is to guess what the adverb is. The tasks should be voice-related.
• Examples: Sing happy birthday in that adverb, talk about the weather in that adverb, read a quote in that adverb. 
• DISCUSSION - After a few rounds, ask the students “What did you do with your voice to portray that adverb? How did other students help you figure out the adverb?”

INSTRUCTION - INFLECTION

• Define inflection as “a change in pitch or tone of the voice” and “a change in the form of a word that reflects a change in grammatical function”. 
• Show the class a non-example and a good example.
  • What if you say read in monotone? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgsjScCr9eU
  • How does inflection help us with characterization? (Characters from Inside Out) https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=k1oXx4delIY&feature=emb_title 
• Introduce 4 inflection skills by having the students say “oh, are you really doing that?” in the following prompts.
  • Upward Inflection - “change in pitch going from a lower to a higher note within the vowel”.
  • Downward Inflection - “change in pitch going from a higher to a lower note within the vowel”
  • Circumflex - “emphasis on a certain word”
  • Sustained - “the feeling of having more to come”
• DISCUSSION - Ask the class “how did the meaning of the sentence change in each prompt?”

GUIDED PRACTICE - INSULT OFF

• Ask the class “what makes an insult?”
• Explain that we are doing an insult off based on Shakespeare’s style of writing. We do not actually insult each other. We focus on how we use inflection to change the meanings. 
• Explain the rules of insult-off.
  • Use “thou” as the beginning of the insult.
  • Pick a phrase from each of the three columns to make a complete insult.
  • Make three combinations and write those down.
  • Must use the words from the list. Cannot make up your own word.
• Draw a tournament on the board. The students will compete based on that.