Learning Objectives 

Students will: 

• Analyze how personality traits, actions, and motives influence the plot of a story.
• Describe emotions portrayed by characters.
• Use senses to add depth to a character.
• Make text-to-self connections. 
• Apply facial expressions, voice, and gestures to act out an event from a story.
• Perform a short character sketch for an audience. 

Standards Alignment

National Core Arts StandardsNational Core Arts Standards

Common Core State StandardsCommon Core State Standards

Recommended Student Materials

Editable Documents: Before sharing these resources with students, you must first save them to your Google account by opening them, and selecting “Make a copy” from the File menu. Check out Sharing Tips or Instructional Benefits when implementing Google Docs and Google Slides with students.

• Emotion Cards

Videos

• 1-2-3 Pantomime with Jamie Hipp
• Mime and Pantomime with Keith Berger and Sharon Diskin
• A Space Senses Journey with Psacoya Guinn

Book Recommendations

• A Long Way from Chicago, Richard Peck
• Brown Girl Dreaming, Jacqueline Woodson
• Goosebumps: One Day at Horrorland, R.L. Stine
• Momotaro: Xander and the Dream Thief, Margaret Dilloway
• The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros

Teacher Background

Teachers should select a mentor text for this lesson and be comfortable acting out given scenarios. 

Student Prerequisites 

Students should be familiar with the plot of a story and character development.

Accessibility Notes

Modify handouts, text, and utilize assistive technologies as needed. Allow extra time for task completion.

Engage

1. Choose three to four student volunteers to model different emotions with their face and body. Distribute a few cards from the Emotion Cards handout to the volunteers. They will read the emotions then model it for the rest of the class. Their classmates will guess the emotion. Ask students: What expressions, body language, and voices are associated with an emotion? Tell students they will learn how storytellers use their faces, bodies, and voices to express emotion and enhance the telling of a story. 

2. Watch the Teaching Artists Present video, 1-2-3 Pantomime with Jamie Hipp or Mime and Pantomime with Keith Berger and Sharon Diskin. Discuss with students how storytellers use their faces, bodies, and voices to portray a character.

3. Ask students to select an animal or a character (real or fictional) and use their face, body, and voice to portray that subject. Have other students guess who or what the student is trying to portray. After the students have guessed correctly, ask them to share how they were able to guess the correct answer from body, face, and/or voice clues.

4. Watch the Teaching Artists Present video, A Space Senses Journey with Psacoya Guinn. Engage students in a discussion about using our senses to bring a character to life. Write these words on the board: smell, sound, touch, and sight. Go through the senses one at a time and ask students to quickly jot down short descriptions of the person who comes to mind when they hear each phrase.

Examples:

-Smell “My younger brother smelling of sweat and sandbox dirt at the end of the day.”

-Sound “My mother falling asleep in front of the television and snoring so loudly that she wakes herself up.”

-Touch "The school nurse putting that stuff that stings on my scraped knee.”

-Sight “The runner is hunched over and her upper body is parallel to the ground from a long distance race.”

5. Divide students into pairs or small groups. Have students reference the examples, then use their senses to dramatize with their faces, bodies, and voices.

Build

1. Act out the following scenario for your students:

Scenario 1

Character: A shy kid

Setting: A school bus

Problem: The boy has a puppy in his backpack that wants to bark.

Outcome: The boy feeds the puppy his lunch to keep him quiet.

2. Invite students to tell the story from a different character's point of view. For example, a bully, a nervous bus driver, or a student who is terrified of dogs. Ask students to dramatize a different outcome based on the new character. 

3. After a few students finish different versions of the scenario, discuss the following: How did each character’s qualities, actions, and motivations impact the plot of a story? How did the storyteller's movements, gestures, voice, and expressions help develop the character?

4. Repeat steps one and two with the following fictional scenario:

Scenario 2

Character: A shocked kid

Setting: The scenario takes place outside of an alien spacecraft that is waiting for clearance from the mother planet to take off into space.

Problem: Imagine that during an outdoor nature class in nearby woods, aliens have borrowed your teacher. They want to take her back to their planet to teach their children about the earth’s flora and fauna. 

Possible Characters: A habitual liar, a clever, resourceful student, a student who is afraid of everything, and a classroom troublemaker.

5. Engage students in a discussion about the special qualities of each character in a story. Ask students: How might the plot of your favorite story be different if the main character is different? 

6. Tell students they are going to keep a journal recording examples of daily encounters with teachers and classmates as they relate to these four senses: sight, sound, smell, and touch. Provide time for students to share one of their favorite entries each day. At the end of the three days, ask students to select one of the people from their entries and describe that person to the class.

Apply

1. Select a book of your choice that describes a character in detail or choose from the options below. Read the excerpt to students. 

Book Recommendations:

A Long Way from Chicago - Read the Prologue. Joey describes his eccentric grandmother, Grandma Dowdel, as “old as the hills” and “tough as an old boot.”

Brown Girl Dreaming - Read the chapter, “greenville, south carolina, 1963.” Jackie describes her mother on a bus in the South, “Her mouth a small lipsticked dash, her back sharp as a line.”

Goosebumps: One Day at Horrorland - Read Chapter 2. Lizzy describes the monster as they approach the amusement park, “Its red eyes glowed with evil.”

Matilda - Read the chapter, “Miss Honey.” The narrator describes Miss Honey, “a mild and quiet person,” and Miss Trenchbull, “a gigantic holy terror.”

Momotaro: Xander and the Dream Thief - Read Chapter 1. The Old Man describes Xander while he’s watching him sleep through a nightmare, “silver hair…like strands of tinsel on a Christmas tree.”

The House on Mango Street - Read the chapter, “Hairs.” Esperanza describes her mothers hair, “sweet to put your nose into when she is holding you.”

2. Have students create a character sketch of one of the characters from your mentor text. Tell students a character sketch is a detailed description of a character. On chart paper, list the following elements of a character sketch: personality traits, demographics, style, physical characteristics,varying facial expressions, gestures, and voice tones that are unique to the character. Students will use their senses to inform their character sketch and use illustrations to accompany specific descriptions. 

3. After the students have completed the character sketch, have students choose one of an event from the story to retell from their characters point of view. Remind students that they are the tellers of the story and to include their own reactions to the story. 

4. Allow time for students to rehearse their character sketches. Facilitate through the classroom to provide feedback and support to the students. 

Reflect 

1. Perform the character sketches for an audience. Observe how the students use their senses to dramatize their faces, bodies, and voices.

2. After each student has performed their character sketch, have a follow-up discussion or written reflection with the class. Ask students: How do gestures, facial expressions, and voice support the telling of a story?