Elementary School Lesson Plan
for Racially and Ethnically Mixed Class

Standard: Students will write a script, planning and recording improvisations based on personal experience and heritage, imagination, literature and history

Achievement Standard: Students will collaborate to select interrelated characters, environments, and situations for classroom dramatizations

Materials: video camera and tape

Preparation: Discuss the rich backgrounds the students bring to the classroom. Explain "oral history." Have the children go home and question their families about their ancestors, their family's origins (journey to America--if appropriate), and their own childhood years. Also ask the students to bring an object from home that has been passed down in the family and that has a story.

Activity: In pairs, have the students share their family stories and objects. Next have the students create a new story that will connect the two objects. Help them choose two characters from the story that might meet in a setting such as a park, bus stop or train station. Have them image the meeting and then, all working at once, the pairs improvise a short interaction. Video tape the improvisations of each pair.

If a further writing assignment is important, help the students transcribe the dialogue. Have the students read their scenes for an audience. Have them edit their scripts after response from their peers.

Assessment: Include the video tape or scripts in the students' portfolios.

Based on a lesson plan by Nellie McCaslin