Georgia Standards

 

South Carolina Standards

 

Key Vocabulary

 

Materials

• Anchor chart paper 
• Markers 
• Paper 
• Pencils

 

Instructional Design

Opening/Activating Strategy

Classroom Tips: Use cueing methods when directing tableaux in your classroom, such as “3-2-1- Freeze” and “3-2-1- Action”. Make your expectations for when students step into their role drama explicit. Go over the guidelines before the drama begins. If necessary, post them somewhere visible so that students can refer back to them. 

 

• Start with a general physical warm-up to get the students' bodies ready. Use exercises such as:
  • Stretching: Stretch all major muscle groups.
  • Shaking Out Limbs: Shake out arms, legs, and the whole body to release tension.
  • Energy Passes: Stand in a circle and pass a clap or a simple motion around to build group focus and energy.
• Introduce tableau to students.
  • Arrange students in small groups.
  • Explain to students that tableau is a “living picture” in which actors pose and freeze in the manner of a picture or photograph.
  • Tell students that you will say a word or phrase and the group must form a tableau of that word or phrase.
  • Say various objects, like “triangle”, or scenarios, like “eating dinner at a restaurant”. Groups should then form the various scenarios within their groups silently. 
• Debrief the activity and tell students that they just engaged in a theatre technique called tableau. It is a“living picture” in which actors pose and freeze in the manner of a picture or photograph.
• Have students return to their seats.

 

Work Session

• Review the following concepts with students: Pollution, conservation, reduce, reuse, recycle, litter, preservation of the environment, natural resources, etc. 
• Tell students that they will be using tableau to learn about these concepts. They will be transforming the classroom into a forest habitat.
• Students should brainstorm what they may find in a forest–discuss the animals, plants, and other things that they might see in this habitat. Show pictures of forests and forest animals for students who might not have been to a forest before. Create a list on a smart board for students to see.
• Tell students that they will be using tableau to bring their forest to life.
  • List out the items students named. As you read them, ask students to become the object.
  • Continue the process until everyone in the class has become a part of the tableau  
  • Now ask students to create sounds for the setting they have created (birds chirping, leaves rustling, etc.).
• Exploring their characters:
  • Tell students that now they will step into the role as the character they dramatized in the class tableau.  
  • Prompt students to silently walk around the room (or move like their object–e.g., a tree swaying in the breeze) in character exploring their character’s movements.
  • Prompt students to imagine their character can speak; students should explore their character’s voice by introducing themselves to one another in-role.  
• Tell students that the teacher is going to step into role as a character. Your character will be a developer who is looking to take down the forest and build a factory that makes plastic lawn chairs.
• Enter the scene and tell the forest what you are going to do as the developer.
• Students remain in role as forest characters and speak to the developer explaining how taking down the forest will impact their environment. 
• The developer exits and the role drama pauses. 
• Discuss the effects that deforestation would have on the forest habitat.
• Resume the tableau–this time imagine that the forest has been taken down. Students should now create a tableau that shows their character after the forest has been removed.
• Discuss how students are showing the effects of deforestation in their tableau.

 

WRITING IN-ROLE: 

• Students will then write a persuasive letter to the developer attempting to stop him/her from taking down the forest. 
• Students will share their letters with a partner. 

 

PRESS CONFERENCE:

• Select four or five students to step onstage in-role as their forest character to persuade the developer to not take the forest down.
• The remaining students step into roles as reporters. Reporters ask the onstage characters “Why?” questions (ex: Why are the trees so important? Why should we stop the developer? Why will this hurt the environment?).

 

Closing Reflection

• Close the lesson with a 3-2-1 ticket out the door. Students should write down three things that they found interesting about the lesson, two things they learned, and one question that they have.
• Provide time for students to share with a partner.

 

 

Assessments

Formative

Teachers will assess students’ understanding of the content throughout the lesson by observing students’ participation in the activator, review of content vocabulary, participation in forest habitat tableau, writing in-role, and questions/answers in the “press conference”.

 

Summative

CHECKLIST

• Students can explain how deforestation will negatively impact the forest habitat.
• Students can use tableau to demonstrate a forest habitat and the effects that deforestation would have on it.

 

DIFFERENTIATION 

Acceleration: Have students conduct the same process exploring other ways that humans can impact their environments (such as water pollution). Remediation:  Provide character cards with pictures for students. The character cards would have items that could be found in a forest, such as a pine tree. Using the picture, help students think about how they could use their body to become a pine tree. Allow students to orally explain how deforestation would impact their character rather than writing a letter.

 

 

*This integrated lesson provides differentiated ideas and activities for educators that are aligned to a sampling of standards. Standards referenced at the time of publishing may differ based on each state’s adoption of new standards.

Ideas contributed by: Jessica Rosa Espinoza. Updated by Katy Betts.

Revised and copyright: July 2024 @ ArtsNOW