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Character Workshop

Lesson 4: Physical Character

Educational Objective:

Students will be able to discover more information about themselves and their character by taking a personality quiz and by doing a character runway walk.


Facet of Understanding

# 2 -Interpretation, # 3 Application, #4 Perspective #6 Self-knowledge


Enduring Understanding 1:

Characters are people just like you and me.


Enduring Understanding 2:

The way we interact in real life may be different from how our character approaches similar situations.


Essential Question 1:

How does learning more about oneself influence character choice?


Essential Question 2:

How does empathy play a part in performance?

Materials Needed:

Personality Quiz – 2 copies for each student. –see attached at end.
Copies of Ch. Analysis Rubric for each.


Hook:

Animal Exercise: Students choose an animal they feel represents their character. They begin to move around the space as that animal. If they are shy or need guidance the teacher may guide them through with things like, “How does your animal eat? How does your animal sleep? Show me how your animal obtains food. Show me how your animal makes friends. Show me how your animal plays. Etc.
Step 1 – Review: Go over rubric with students; clarify expectations for paper that is due next class.
Step 2 – Personality quiz: Hand out the personality quiz front up. Tell them not to turn the paper over, we’ll go over the back in a bit. Have them fill out the front by choosing which word appeals to or they feel describes them the best. When they are all finished, have them read the answer key and tally their scores.
Step 3 – Share: What color(s) are you dominant in? Show them the answer key and what their colors mean. Do you feel that your result is accurate? Search for individual students’ responses and self-discovery. Emphasize that these aren’t meant to label you as one specific thing. There will be overlap in many cases because each person is an individual. These just help you figure out your preferences and strengths which can be applied to group work and collaboration.
Step 4 – Discuss: Which of these personality colors could clash in a group setting and how? Once they’ve exhausted their ideas about how they all clash with each other, help them see how they can all work together really well too. They’ll have good insights.
Step 5 – Practice: Personality quiz as character. Do the same thing, but answering questions from character’s point of view. They’ll be faster the second time around.
Step 6 – Share: Discuss how the character’s traits are different from the students’ traits. By raise of hands who is pretty similar to their character? Who is radically different? Who overlaps in between?
Discuss what students can do to create characters that are similar and different from themselves? Where will they have to come out of their comfort zone? What will come naturally as that character?

Final Assessment for Lesson 4:

Collect Personality Quizzes and grade them for completion.

Homework:

Turn in Ch. Analysis next class.

Sources:

Ideas adapted from Camee Anderson Faulk’s unit on TED: intro to body storytelling/pantomime.

Link to Personality Quiz:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wyj5y5xqet5jwpd/PersonalityTest-%20Blue%2C%20Green%2C%20Yellow%2C%20Red.pdf?dl=0