"Coaching" up my reluctant actors to get better stories

With TPRS storytelling, sometimes the stories are so great, memorable, and engaging that students come back to me the next year saying "Hey Sra. Rivera, remember when Gomez vive en una caja en Chino? (lives in a box in China). 

Sometimes, you have an actor that is a natural, loves the attention, and can come up with way better facial expressions than I could ever suggest.

Here's Robert...loves the attention!

For Example:

Sean grabbed the white board and drew his own abs

Other actors will play off one outgoing student

Unfortunately, not every student actor that volunteers is Hollywood-bound.  It always shocks me. I will ask for a volunteer to act and I will have a student raise their hand, beg, yell "OH...ME, ME, ME!", practically leap out of the desk to be the actor.  Then, when I'm doing the story, this same exact kid that was SO animated just moments ago, is an absolutely boring, bland, bump on a log. 

It was this conundrum that made me first start "coaching" my actors. Coaching the actors turned out to have many unexpected benefits.

Unexpected benefits of coaching actors:

• better acting during stories
• increase in student engagement (reverse psychology, I'll explain how)
• more repititions

So, now I chose actors that haven't even volunteered, just so that I can coach them up...because it makes it easy to get more reps and keeps our stories and class from being monotonous.

Meet Logan and Jesse...

Logan

Jesse

Neither of these boys "volunteered" to be an actor today. In fact, both would probably be quite happy if I had left them alone to blend in to the backgrounds from their comfy seats...but what's the fun in that? :) 

I would never bring a kid up in front of their peers unless I can ensure that it will be a positive, successful experience for them, so here's how I do that...

Demonstrating how they should act something out:
If it's something that can easily be acted out from their desks, I'll have the whole class demonstrate. One of the structures for today was is worried. Jesse was at a loss for how to show us "is worried." So I jump in and it goes something like this...

Jesse is worried...oh no no no no.  Jesse that's not worried.  Show me worried.  Ah man, I just don't feel like you are worried.  Class, show Jesse what worried looks like. Ah, Jesse...look, Jake is worried.  Ooo, Jenny that's a GREAT worried. Uh, Billy, I'm not sure if that's worried or gassy...oh, it's worried? Ok, we'll take it...Billy is worried.  Ok, Jesse... now show us worried.  Much better, phwew back to the story...Jesse is worried.

In addition to keeping the audience on their toes and participating, I was just able to "milk" another 12 reps of the vocab. structure.

Jesse is worried before

Jesse is worried after

Especially if asking your "actors" to do something that might be out of the comfort zone of the average teen, I always demo. first.  I've noticed that if I'm goofy first, it gives them permission to be goofy without worrying that their peers will think they are goofy.  They are only doing what that crazy teacher did.

Demo: sees a pretty girl

Demo: "suave walk" to girl  

Demo: Touches her hands romantically

Demo: grabs her hands 

What's even better than teacher demo. is when another student will demonstrate an idea he/she has about how to best act it out.  Here's Robert demonstrating for Logan what a "sexy walk" looks like, it was HILARIOUS!  The pictures do not do it justice!  I wish we had caught the video of it instead of still pictures.

Logan's first attempt at "suave walk" to the girl. (Logan is a brilliant and serious student and silliness is one of the few things that does not come naturally to him--his first attempt here was affectionately described as a robot with polio)

Robert jumped up and said "let me show you what a "suave walk" looks like...it started with a twirl

...then the strut...

...and of course ended with the double guns pointed at the pretty girl

The other technique that I have found will help any actor be more comfortable is cueing them non-verbally when you want them to do something.  Once we've figured out what "is worried" looks like, I will repeat the set up for the acting and then add in an obvious and exaggerated cue like stomping my foot when the actor should show us "is worried".

body cue to Jesse to react

body cue to Robert

body cues can get more subtle as story progresses and actor feels more comfortable