Channel changer

Key concepts

The key concepts for this starter are improvisation, genre, character and storytelling.

Resources

A real or imagined object to be the ‘remote control’, and an overhead projector (OHP) or interactive whiteboard.

Drama in Schools (Second Edition) strands

This starter meets the following recommendations from Drama in Schools (Second Edition) (Arts Council England, 2003). For a complete list, see the Resources section.

• Level 3: Making: Devise plays from a range of stimuli
• Level 3: Performing: Act out improvised dramas and existing scripts, creating characters that are clearly different from themselves, and experiment with voice, gesture, costumes and staging
• Level 5: Making: Combine their skills and knowledge of drama to devise plays of different types for different purposes
• Level 5: Performing: Use an increasing range of different drama techniques, effects and theatre conventions in the plays they present
• Level 6: Making: Devise dramas in various forms, based on a range of challenging issues and themes

Objective

To improvise a scene spontaneously, using the appropriate genre.

Starter

Choose four students. Ask each of these students to choose a television style, or ‘channel’, such as the news, travel, soap opera or children’s television. Examples are provided on the following presentation which could be displayed on an interactive whiteboard or OHP.

Channel changer

The rest of the class should act as the audience. They should be given a ‘remote control’. This could be a real or imagined object. Explain that they are going to use this to determine which channel is shown on the television. You may wish to have the remote control at first, and then hand it to the audience when students are more familiar with the activity. The audience should provide a television style for the performers to work with, starting with the examples above.

As each student’s channel is requested, they must perform an improvisation based on the theme.

This activity could be developed into a prepared improvisation, to help students develop a clearer understanding of the differences between genres, eg tragedy, horror, romance, etc.

Plenary

Discussion topics include:

• What are the differences between the genres?
• How could the differences be shown more clearly?

Variations

• To involve more students, organise the whole class into groups of four. The teacher could manage the remote control. Each group would have to spontaneously improvise their channel as it is requested.
• You could run the presentation above in a timed ‘random’ sequence, and project it onto a screen for the class to view. The students would have to improvise whatever comes up on the screen.
• Print out the following onto card and cut out the cards. You may wish to laminate these for future use. Organise the class into groups. Ensure that there is a card for each group. The groups should prepare a programme on the theme of the channel on their card, in an appropriate performance style. This presents a greater challenge, as the students have to work together.
  Channel changer: Cards