Georgia Standards

South Carolina Standards

Key Vocabulary

Materials

• Drum (optional for Expressive Statues)
• Positional words on cards, or real or virtual whiteboard

Instructional Design

Opening/Activating Strategy

Expressive Statues

• Explain that when the teacher says, “Start!”, claps hands once, or hits the drum, the students will freeze in a pose.  This is called a ‘statue.’  Add that when the teacher says, “Stop!”, claps or hits the drum twice, they must freeze.  Model several statues for the students, showing varied use of the body and facial expression.  

• Give the first prompt:  “Show me with your body a statue of how you look when you feel happy. 1…2… 3… Start!”  Use observational language to point out students’ creative choices, e.g., “I see Chase has his hands open and up in the air; Marisol has a big smile and her eyes are closed,” etc.
• Remind students that a statue should be expressive, showing action or excitement or emotion.  An effective statue involves the entire body, face, and eyes as well. 
• Give additional emotion prompts: happy, sad, mad, bored, embarrassed, scared, tired, confused, etc. 
• Give prompts that convey opposites: tall/short, wide/thin, heavy/light (i.e., lightweight), prickly/smooth, etc.

Work Session

Tableau

• Introduce tableau:  a frozen picture made by two or more actors.  It is like a statue, but a statue is one person, and a tableau has more than one.  In a tableau, the actors are working together to create a single picture.  (If the actors are frozen but not forming a picture together, it is not a tableau, but rather simply a group of statues.)
• Invite several volunteers up and guide them to create an animal tableau, e.g., birds perched on the branch of a tree (in varied poses), several puppies playing, or horses in a field.  Remind them that, like a statue, a tableau is still.  Encourage them to find poses that suggest movement.
• Have students work in trios.  Give them prompts for animal tableaux.  Use the examples above, or some of your own, or things like “dolphins leaping out of the sea,” “chickens pecking in a pen,” or “giraffes and zebras in the savanna.”  Describe the students’ tableaux using position words, e.g., “the dolphin is leaping above the waves” or “the zebra is under the giraffes’ heads.”  Model describing the tableau with opposing positional words, e.g., “giraffes’ heads are over the zebra.”

Positional Word Tableaux 

• Introduce the positional words in the list below – show word cards or write them on a real or virtual whiteboard.  Review them to ensure that the students know what they mean.
• Still in pairs, have the students work together to make tableaux that show positional relationships.  The tableaux can involve animals and also inanimate objects, e.g., a dog under a table, or a cheetah on a branch.  (Possibly, tell them they can make the tableaux about anything, so long as they convey the named positional relationships.)  With paired positional words, have them state the relationship in the tableau using both terms.  
• Above / Below 
• Beside 
• In Front of / Behind
• On / Off
• Inside / Outside
• Over / Under 
• Possibly, have each pair come to the front and show one of their favorite tableaux.

Closing Reflection

• Ask students to recall what statues and tableaux are.
• Ask students to describe how they used their bodies to create their tableaux.

Assessments

Formative

• Students should accurately represent assigned or chosen positional words with their bodies. 
• Students should effectively articulate the relationships in their tableaux

Summative

Have students draw a picture of one of the tableaux they created with their partner.  Have them write or, as appropriate, dictate the sentence or sentences that describe the positional relationship in the tableau drawing.

Differentiation

Acceleration:

• Expand the list of positional words, to include synonyms and variations, such as ‘beneath,’ ‘within,’ ‘through,’ etc.
• Have students create a sequence of three tableaux that tell a simple story.  E.g., Horse standing beside a fence, horse jumping over the creek, horse walking inside the barn.

Remediation:

• Provide more modeling of paired tableaux, i.e., with several pairs.
• Lead the class in doing the same tableau ideas, honoring the different choices that pairs make in executing the tableaux.

*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 Mary Gagliardi.  Updated by Barry Stewart Mann.

 Revised and copyright:  August 2022 @ ArtsNOW

Georgia Standards

South Carolina Standards

Key Vocabulary

Materials

• Smart board/white board
• Markers/crayons
• Story Map with characters, setting, and the parts of a plot
• Pencils
• Swimmy by Leo Lionni
• Optional: Sock puppet or stuffed animal

Instructional Design

Opening/Activating Strategy

Classroom Tips: Use cueing methods when directing tableau in your classroom: “3–2–1–Freeze”.

• 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 the art form of tableau with a warm-up: Statues in the Garden.
  • Tell students that the teacher is the guard of the garden and all of the other players are statues in the garden.
  • The guard counts to ten and says “Freeze”.
  • During the count, all of the other players move around the room and become a frozen statue by the count of 10.
  • Tell students that when the guard is wandering through the garden and is not looking at them, they should change their statue position. However, if the guard sees a statue move or in the process of moving, that player will be “out”.
  • As the teacher wanders through the garden, prompt students to create statues in different environments (ie. statues we may see in a city, statues of animals we may see in a forest, etc,).
  • Debrief the activity sharing that when actors make “frozen pictures” with their bodies, this is called tableau in theatre. Tell students that they will be using tableau in the lesson today.

Work Session

• Read the book, Swimmy, by Leo Lionni, aloud to the class.
• Pause throughout the reading and ask students to use tableau and pantomime to analyze the characters, setting, and major events.
  • Example: “I wonder what the tuna fish’s face looked like at this point in the story? Can I see everyone make the face of the tuna fish? 3–2–1–FREEZE!”.
  • In this way, students will explore the characters using tableau, movement and pantomime at various points in the text. Select different students to demonstrate the story using tableau, movement, and/or pantomime for the rest of the class.
    • Example: “When Swimmy was exploring the underwater creatures he saw some pretty amazing things! Can anyone remember one creature he saw?” Ask several students to show the class a statue of that creature.
  • When the class gets to the end of the story, discuss the lesson that the school of fish learned. Facilitate a class discussion relating personal experiences to the story’s lesson.
• Introduce the parts of the story–beginning, middle, and end–with a class visitor such as a puppet or stuffed animal.
  • The class puppet/stuffed animal/etc. should arrive and visit the class right after you finish the story. Tell the puppet that you just finished reading a story.
  • The puppet tells the class that they love retelling stories and shares “Retell a Story Dance” with the class.
  • Students learn the dance: Hand up for the beginning, out for the middle and down for the end.
  • The puppet wants to know what the story is about.
  • As a class, retell the story with the beginning, middle, and end. At each point in retelling the story, students should put their hand in the appropriate position to indicate which part of the story it is–beginning, middle, or end.
• Divide students into small groups. Assign each group a part of the story–beginning, middle, or end. Each group should create a short scene acting out their part of the story.
  • Circulate the room to work with students and check for understanding as they create their scenes.
• Put three groups together–one with the beginning, one with the middle, and one with the end of the story. Have students put their scenes together in the correct sequence.
  • Provide time for students to practice. Circulate the room to work with students and check for understanding.

Closing Reflection

• Students will perform the story for the class. Discuss appropriate audience participation and etiquette prior to performances.
• After each performance, students should discuss how the groups showed the beginning, middle, and end of the story.
• Ask students how drama techniques like pantomime and tableau helped them understand the story.
• As a class, or in small groups, create a story map of the beginning, middle and end of the story using illustrations and descriptions.

Assessments

Formative

Teachers will assess students’ understanding of the content throughout the lesson by observing students’ participation in the activator, use of pantomime and tableau to act out parts of the story as it is read aloud, discussion of the story’s lesson and relating it to their own personal experiences, retelling of the story, and conferencing with students as they act out their assigned part of the story.

Summative

CHECKLIST

• Students can use pantomime and tableau to communicate or retell parts of the story.
• Students can act out an assigned portion of a story and determine where it fits in the sequence.

Students can accurately retell the parts of a story using a Story Map.

DIFFERENTIATION 

 *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