Play is an important part of growing up. Trying out roles, acting out adventures… imagination! Here are some improv activities adapted to the classroom with some rubrics.
I first saw these on a TV show in the ’90s called “Whose line Is It Anyway?” where comedians performed improv scenes. I adapted them to teaching French at the time in order to develop conversation skills and improvised speaking in a fun lesson. When I switched to social studies in ’04, I sometimes used these at the end of a unit.
Stranger in Town
This activity must have a real name among improv comedians, but I just called it this. Three volunteers come to the front of the room. One goes out into the hallway briefly, out of earshot. The two who are left quickly agree on a scene they will perform for 3 minutes. The person in the hall, the “stranger”, is invited in and the scene commences. After 3 minutes, the stranger has to guess who they are based on the scene, in which, by the way, they had to participate. Imagine walking into a room and finding out you’re Henry VIII!
Here’s a sample setup for a social studies class where students had chosen their activity in advance and I had prepared it. To save time, I would sometimes generate the scenes for stranger in town and have teams roll the dice to see which to play. The identity of the person playing “stranger” was always a surprise!
Press Conference
The volunteer goes to the front of the room, preferably to a lectern, and pretends to be some famous person in history. The class are reporters whom she will call upon to ask questions. Pretend you’re Hannibal and you’ve just gotten your army with your elephants over the Alps. Can you answer some questions from our reporters before you disembark?
Although I often had students prepare for these if they weren’t confident, it can be an improv exercise for the brave and bold. Let it be a surprise to the volunteer whom they will play!
Newscast
Two volunteers for newscast come to the front of the room to play reporters who are to report on a scene from history. They don’t know what they scene is until they get there! (Presumably this is at the end of a unit and the scenes are from the current topic of study). One student plays the anchor at the desk which the other is “in the field”, a reporter on the scene. A third student may participate as a bystander whom the reporter will interview.
Artifact
In artifact, students create a quick construction paper cutout of some object associated with our unit. It could be an Egyptian scroll or a Greek sword or Thomas Jefferson’s quill. The student presents the artifact to the class as an archaeologist at a conference. For teaching world language, the artifact is something from our current vocabulary or reading.
I used all of these to teach French as well. For teaching world language, these scenes would not be about history, but of everyday life. Stranger in Town could be a scene in a restaurant and the stranger is a waiter serving a fussy customer. Press conference or newscast could be an event of current interest.
Improv is fun, but may not be for everyone.
Improv is fun. If you have time for it, dive in! Some kids are uncomfortable with this and I never made them play. I confess that in my later years teaching social studies, I was forced by time constraints to abandon these for my older kids. The demands of curriculum and remediation and state tests were such that the minimal content reinforcement provided by these activities, well, the juice was just not worth the squeeze.
Not all classes are right for this kind of thing. If you have a middle school class that has trouble self-regulating or is over-excitable, this may not be a good idea. It also does not work well with students who feel very uncomfortable in ambiguous situations or in performing. You will know who can benefit from this and who might not because you know your kids.