Submitted by Elizabeth Chaigne

Objectives:

Content:
Students will...

• understand the difference between a scripted play and an improvisation.
• understand that improvisation, while spontansous, must be prepared for.
• recognize that an autobiography must be written in the first person. 

 

 

Cultural:

Language: Content Obligatory
Students will...

• use the first person singular in the present and past tenses with verbs of action/movement such as to go (aller), to leave (partir), to pass through (passer par), to begin (commencer) to write a character autobiography.  
• use expressions such as however (cependant), anyway (de toute façon), next (ensuite), since (depuis), in addition (en plus), luckily/unluckily (heuresement/malheuresement), after that (après cela) to advance the story of their character history/autobiography.
• use the 3rd person singular imperfect tense of the verb to be (être) to describe written generalities such as 'It was...' (C'était...).
• use the following vocabulary: family background (la vie familiale), physical attributes (les caractéristiques physiques), fears and/or passions (les craintes et les passions), major events in the character’s life (les événements principaux du personage) to discuss in cooperative groups.

 

Language: Content Compatible
Students will... 

• use the 1^st and 2^nd person imperative tense with expressions like ‘Let’s hurry up’('Dépêchons-nous); ‘Slow down, I can’t rite that fast’ (Ralentis, je ne peux pas écrire si vite); ‘Tell me what you think.’ (Dis-moi ce que tu en penses.)  to discuss during cooperative group work.
• ask questions such as ‘How do you say...?’ (Comment dit-on...?); ‘What do you call this?’ (Comment s'appelle...?) to negotiate meaning and find appropriate vocabulary to write their autobiography.

Learning Strategies / Social and Skills Development:
Students will...

• make and use a bubble map to create a character autobiography.
• work in small cooperative groups to create lifestyle categories for their character.

Time Frame:

One 50 minute to an hour lesson

Materials Needed:

• Information from the graphic organizers from previous lesson (on hand for reference only)
• Paper and pencil to create/fill out vocabulary web
• Large area to create a class list of interview question categories
• Blank transparency to model the vocabulary web
• Vis à vis pen
• Overhead projector

Description of Assessment (Performance Project):

Pre-task:

Review the strategies covered for character development up to now (Lessons 1 & 2:  A character's personality helps in forming its environment, habits and language.  Lesson 3: We can further develop a character by defining its personality and then creating its gestures and language based on our findings.) Tell students that in today's lesson they will be further developing the character chosen in lesson 3 by creating an imaginary character history using a bubble map. They will then use this bubble map to aid in writing a character autobiography.  In order to get them thinking about the bigger outcomes of today's lesson, you may want to mention that the information gathered and created from this bubble map and subsequent autobiography should be used when acting out the improvised interview of their character in the next lesson. Remind them that improvisation, even though it is a spontaneous speaking activity, must be prepared for.

 

Begin by soliciting a large group discussion with

the following questions: What is the difference between an improvisation and a scripted play? (For scripts the lines must be memorized and we already know the outcome; for improvisation, you must really think on your feet and be attentive to what's going on.) In what situations do we use improvisations naturally? (When we talk on the phone, give directions to someone on the street, try to explain a story or situation.)

 

In preparation for the next lesson's interview, ask students to quickly break into groups of three and number off 1-3.  (You can assign tasks to each of the numbers being careful not to have the same number attributed to the same job as in previous lessons so students have a variety of jobs to do each time there is this kind of group work.) i.e. All the ones are the secretary; all twos the time keepers; and the threes the director of the group to assure that everyone participates.  Each group is responsible for coming up with 3-4 general categories around which an interviewer would formulate his/her actual questions for an interview.  (Examples are, but not limited to:  family background, physical attributes, fears and/or passions, major events in the character’s life.)  Be sure to go over the CC and CO language objectives and explicitly ask students to use this language during their group work.

 

After 5 minutes bring the whole class back together to share their ideas.  Write the ideas in list form on the board for the entire class to see.  You will find that many of the ideas can easily be combined into just a few general categories (as mentioned above), but remain open to students' new perspectives. 

 

During-task:

As independent work, students will be asked to choose 5-6 categories from the class list and create a vocabulary web map that reflects the character's world.  The teacher should demonstrate this with an overhead. (See the attached document: 'web map example' as a guide.) I prefer to have the students create their own web based on the teacher’s model instead of giving the students a copy of an empty web.  If students are creating their web from scratch, then it is a good idea to tell students to first write their words on the paper and after draw the circle around the words. Otherwise, students have a tendency to draw circles that are too small to write inside. The web should have a circle in the middle containing the character’s name or title. Stems are drawn out from this main circle and the chosen categories are written inside.  From each of these circles other stems are drawn and the student fills in words, expressions or experiences about their character for that chosen category. 

 

During this process, students may need to use dictionaries and/or ask vocabulary related questions.  The teacher may want to get the students thinking about possible vocabulary by referring them to the behavior and word/expression graphic organizers from the previous lesson.

 

Beyond-task:

The teacher should now let students know that actors frequently write an autobiography of their character to further develop it. Using the completed web bubble map as a spring board, he/she asks them to do this for their character. You will want to model this informing students that each bubble that contains a 'category' could act as a topic sentence. The information they have created surrounding that category would be supporting sentences. However, the map should not be used as a strict structure for the writing process. Students may include information that is not on the web map and are not required to use all the information recorded on it. 

 

The goal is to use the web map as a tool for further exploration about their character.  What is most important is that students develop a meaningful and personal history of the character that they can draw from when speaking during the subsequent interview. 

 

Their autobiography should use complete sentences and be mindful of spelling. Inform students that an autobiography requires that students use the 1st person singular. They are to write as if they were the character and not as if they were talking about it. This is sometimes harder for young people to do than one would think. Take time to write a few examples on the board utilizing present and past tenses in your examples and paying attention to the CC and CO language objectives of this lesson. (See the attached example: Character Autobiography Example) Allow students time to get started and assign the completion of the autobiography as homework to be turned in the next class session.

 

You may want to take time to go over the rubric for this autobiography so students have a clear idea as to what is required. I suggest  having students turn in both the web map and the autobiography for grading.

Assessment:

Students’ autobiographies will be graded using the attached rubric. Students’ web planning needs to be turned in for evaluation with the autobiography.

Attachments:

NOTE: some attachments are in PDF form (get Acrobat Reader)

Web Map Example

Improvisation Rubric

Character Autobiography Example

A Lesson from the CoBaLTT Project
/cobaltt
Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition
University of Minnesota