Boddie-Baker – Jen Weisphal
Learning Objective/Exit Outcomes:
- Students will be able to express facts about the Cold War.
- Students will be able to use communication skills to listen carefully to their peers.
- Students will be able to work together to create a cohesive sentence about subject matter.
- Students will be able to demonstrate effective verbal communication by projecting their voice and using diction when speaking.
- Students will be able to practice appropriate behavior as an audience member.
Social Studies & Theatre
SS5H5 Discuss the origins and consequences of the Cold War.
- Explain the origin and meaning of the term “Iron Curtain.”
- Explain how the United States sought to stop the spread of communism through the Berlin airlift, the Korean War, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
- Identify Joseph McCarthy and Nikita Khrushchev.
- Discuss the importance of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War.
TA5.PR.1 Act by communicating and sustaining roles in formal and informal environments.
- Use vocal elements (e.g. inflection, pitch, volume, articulation) to communicate thoughts, ideas, and emotions of a character.
- Use body and movement to communicate thoughts, ideas, and emotions of a character.
- Collaborate and perform with an ensemble to present theatre to an audience.
TA5.RE.1 Engage actively and appropriately as an audience member.
- Participate as an audience.
- Demonstrate appropriate theatre etiquette.
Open space at the front of the classroom
The teacher picked five volunteers to come up to the front of the class. The teacher had students use Five-Headed Expert to answer comprehension questions about the Cold War.
For Five-Headed Expert, five students make up an “expert” and each student gives one word to a sentence that is being created by the group. For example, :
Student 1: “The”
Student 2: “Cold”
Student 3: “War”
Student 4: “was”
Student 5: “brought”
Student 1: “on”
Student 2: “by”
Student 3: “the”, etc…
The teacher asked the Five-Headed Expert to various comprehension questions dealing with the Cold War, such as “What is the origin and meaning of the term ‘Iron Curtain’?” The students had to give complete sentence answers as the Five-Headed Expert. The teacher chose a new group of five students for each question to allow for maximum participation, going around to each table group in the class.
If the “expert” gets off track and is flailing for the correct information, the audience can raise their hands for the teacher to call on, giving the Five-Headed Expert a little extra support.
It’s helpful to talk to the class about what an audience needs to do with respect to the performers. Students generally know from previous experience, but having a reminder before the game starts helps the audience start on the right foot with them.
Making sure students know that projection and diction are part of theatre performance will aid in their success when speaking in a large group. Not only do they need the other two players to hear their word, but the audience needs to be able to hear as well to raise their hands to help should things begin to go off course.