“To be a person is to have a story to tell.”
– Isak Dinesen, author
Lesson Plan 3: From Story to Expression
Objective
Students will transform their story into a draft performance art piece that is 2-5 minutes in length and is appropriate for a public audience.
Introduction (2 minutes)
Every piece of artwork – from classical ballet to the Top 40s list on the radio – tells a story. The purpose of art is to transport the audience member to have a new experience or to connect their lives to the lives of another. In this lesson, and over the next few sessions, you will take your story and translate it to a piece of performance art.
Do Now (6 minutes)
In partner’s share the 1-2 pieces of performance art from your homework that elicited an emotional response from you – these do not have to be the pieces you “liked” the most, rather, the pieces that most impacted you when reading or viewing. Why do you think these pieces elicited that response from you?
As a group, have a few people share.
Lesson Materials (20 minutes)
Each of you will create your own performance piece influenced by the story you developed last session. To start on that process, we first want to take a moment to reflect on two key questions to guide our process:
- What is the message you want the audience members to draw from your piece?
- What emotions do you want the audience to experience (this will influence your language, pacing, etc.)?
- Complete the following chart.
| What did you see? | |
| What did you hear? | |
| What did you feel? |
After you have become clear on the answer to these questions, head back to your original draft! Using the guiding questions, build out a draft of your original piece. Use the videos from your homework, online thesauruses and dictionaries, and your colleagues to inspire language and ideas.
Closing (4 minutes)
Today, you had the opportunity to begin the process of turning your narrative into a performance piece. As homework before the next session, you will complete a full first draft of your piece. In the next lesson, we will use an article on different performance styles to edit and revise our performance pieces for clarity and emotional impact.
Homework (30 minutes)
For the next session, create a full first draft of your performance piece and be prepared to revise in the next session.