Teaching Improv

September 26th

The previous week my practicum teacher had asked if I would be interested in teaching the class some new improv games. So this week I came prepared with a couple of improv games to teach the class. I arrived at the school to find a substitute Teacher in the classroom. My cooperating teacher had made plans for the students to do their improv 'Battle Royal'. I had not yet seen the students do this in class yet. I told the sub how I'd been told to come prepared to teach the class and we decided to offer it up to the class if they would like to learn something new or proceed with the plans left for the sub. I had only seen the students do Improv the previous week and this week I found myself teaching them some new Improv games by their request.The sub basically sat in the room doing his own thing.

I got the students up on the stage in two groups to warm up with a quick game of Zip-Zap-Zop, which I had seen them do the previous week. It is a warm up game that promotes working with your 'other' to respond and react. A number of students decided not to participate and I was unsure of what to do to engage them. A majority of the students were on stage and out of those students most were actively engaged.