Experience 6.2 
Character Development: Role Playing

It is important to give characters a life of their own. Backstage, actors can explore and learn about their characters through role playing and improvising. Actors make up dialogue as they go along. It takes some quick thinking with little advance preparation, but the results are fun as well as informational.

Students use their work on their character’s development (and their character’s problem or conflict) as a basis to write a story. A story map in the form of a coat of arms is provided under Handout Manuscripts to assist students in planning their stories. (A coat of arms is a family emblem that is worn on a knight’s tunic and shield, to help identify people during battle.)

Mental Joust: How do I develop a story around my character? What conflict does my medieval character encounter? How is the problem resolved in my story? What conflicts do we encounter today? How should we resolve today’s conflicts?

Time: 45 minutes

Materials: Book of Days, pens, photocopies of the coat of arms story map

Worthy Words: improvisation, role playing 

Procedure:

1. Ask a volunteer to go to the front of the class and role play (become) his character. The student introduces himself and describes his problem to the class. 
2. The class asks questions of the character.
3. When finished, the student returns to his seat and continues to write what he learned about his character.
4. The process is repeated with a few other character interviews in front of the class.
5. Divide the remaining students into small groups to continue the interviewing and writing process.
6. Ask students to use the graphic organizer provided at the end of the unit (titled "Coat of Arms Story Map" under Handout Manuscripts) to help them develop a story around their character's problem. Then write their stories in their Books of Days. Students may need to have this as a homework assignment if class time is short.
7. Have students swap stories with a partner and write five questions that will add detail. Encourage students to ask questions that will illicit more than a yes or no response.
8. Students select the questions that make them want to write more and turn those questions into leads for further writing.