Give and Take
Length 35-40 minutes
Arizona Essential Standards
    Demonstrate mental and physical attributes required to communicate characters different from themselves.
    Describe and compare responses to their own work and works by others.
Objectives
    Students will:
        -demonstrate an understanding of the concept of give and take.
        -work on the skills of active listening, appropriate response, and emotional involvement
Warm-up
    Ask students to find a partner and stand facing one another.  Maintain eye contact throughout the exercise. Partners will count to three.  Partner A will say one, partner B will say two, partner A will say three, partner B will say one, and so on.  Remind students that they are working as a team.  This is not a competition and the goal is not to trip up your partner.
    Discussion
        What skills did you use during this exercise?
        What made it easy or difficult?
        Talk about listening, responding, reliance on partner, etc.
    Introduce concept of give and take.  Read the definition aloud and ask for student definitions.
Video
    Show a videotaped performance.  Ask students to evaluate the actors' skills regarding give and take.  What specific actions show an emotional connection between actors?  Are they listening to each other? Discuss students' findings.
Back-to-Back
    Have partners sit back-to-back in front of the class.  Ask students to state how they character is feeling before each line.  Use a short excerpt from any play.
What?
    Ask partners to read through a script line by line and when one partner does not understand they say "What?", and their partner must explain in their own words what they meant.  When the questioning individual understands, they may return to the script.
Assessment and Closure
    Review the definition of give and take incorporating student input.
    Ask student to respond in their journals to the following questions:
        Why is give and take important during a performance?
        List a few give and take strategies you will incorporate into your future scene work.
                                                                            Designed by S.N.R