Improv to Boost Student Confidence

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As a graduate from University of Toronto, I receive quarterly newsletters that come as a delightful surprise. This is because the seasons always seem to pass quickly and I am genuinely surprised that I'm received the newest quarterly is in my mailbox. Typical of most newsletters, there is a general theme that is addressed and a variety of articles that highlight this particular theme in a thought-provoking manner, and usually University of Toronto's newsletter will feature the institutions newest and upcoming research thats been done.

The most recent spring issue, Vol. 49 No. 2, had an article titled Doing Improv Can Boost Your Confidence, which caught my attention. Improv, or improvisation, is a form of live theater, usually in the form of comedy, whereby participants must act out a scene or scenario on the spot. This is highly entertaining for the audience, as the outcome can be hilarious or hilariously dreadful.

While I have never done improv, I've always been very interested in the idea. I grew up watching Whose Line is it Anyways?, and eternally grateful when it came back in the air in 2013 after a 6 year hiatus. I will occasionally watch a new clips to this day of Colin Mochrie and Ryan Stiles similatiously work together to make the audience laugh and make each others role during a sketch difficult because that just what friends so. For an idea of what I mean, take a look at this clip. So, you probably can see why I was immediately drawn to this article.

The article highlight the new research of Stephanie Begun, assistant professor at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, who used improv as a therapeutic strategy for marginalized women. Working together with Daphney Joseph, a performer from The Second City comedy theatre in Toronto, they held in-person and online workshops and completed an interview to confirm their findings. It was found that improv boosted the women's self-esteem in three ways: facilitating a safe community where members can say must agree to the task and take risks, creates a even playing field due to the random nature of improv, and created new social connections that distracted the participants from their everyday worries.

This had me thinking, what if this can be introduced in the classroom? Can I boost my classrooms' morale and the confidence of each student by using a teaching strategy as unconventional as improv?

Of course, this brought me into a Google search spiral on the rule of improv. As loose ended as improv may seem, there had to be guiding principles on how to conduct oneself, right? Thankfully this theory panned out, and there are principles or rules, specifically five based on ImprovEncylopedia.org. The first rule is, there is no improve. Ha! Just kidding. Okay, let's get back to the important information. The first rule is don't deny, you must accept whatever scenario is given to you. Second rule is don't ask complicated, open-ended questions that can make your partner get stuck or unsure how to answer. Third rule is you don't have to always have a funny remark, sometimes a few general statements can lead to a funny scenario. Fourth, your partner can't read your mind, so lead them in and support one another. Finally, the fifth and final rule, tell a story that the audience can understand, so create a proper set-up.

With that said, I thought of two categories of improv activities in a classroom; low-stakes activities and high-stake activities. I would recommend doing a low-stakes improv activity first because the students can then familiarize themselves with the format without the added weight to say 'the right thing', thus reducing student performance anxiety. Also, this encourages the students use to working collaboratively. This could be a fun end-of-the-school-week activity to do with the class.

A few examples of low-stakes activities:

Word at a Time Story (class)

Students will be given a random title (could be a phrase from the novel) or image that they will have to create their own short story by saying one word at a time. They must create a sensible story, therefore no funny business - beyond the improv that is already happening! They have to work together to create a cohesive thought and overall story.

Interview with an Character (pairs)

Students will pretend to interview an character. One student will be the interviewer and the other will be acting as the character answering the questions. This could be a character from the novel or a famous celebrity. It definitely will bring out some quirky answers from the students and a lot of laughs from the class.

Questions Only (groups)

Students will decide on a scenario. Then, the participants must answer with only questions. Depending on the class, you can turn this exercise into a competition by deducting points or striking players out for hesitating or answering in statements. The game continues for a set amount of time, until the scene ends naturally, or until the last player remains.

A few example of high-stakes activities:

Whats your advice? (pairs)

Students will pull out of a random characters name (related to their novel study) and advice topic (i.e. relationships, parents, study, love, etc.) and will have to consider how this character from the novel would answer these questions. For instance, how would Hamlet give love advice? Students must consider how this character may respond. This activity requires preparatory work to ensure students are properly scaffolded for the activity. Throughout their novel study, the students will use a character map, similar to this one, to deepen and map out well before the type of characters and the motivating factors of each.

Living Tableau (groups)

Groups are given a random scene from the novel (each group can have a different scene or you can have repeats to keep things interesting) and are asked to recreate the scene with their bodies. A tableau can be used to quickly establish a scene that involves a large number of characters. The rest of the class had to guess which scene this could be from the novel. If the group does it successfully, the class will get it right.

A friendly reminder before doing any of these activities, make sure to always consider your students needs and the classroom climate. In other words, know your students! Some students may have an Individual Education Plan (IEP) that would restrict you to go right into even a low stakes improv activity. Maybe one student had a bad or embarrassing experience presenting in the past and is anxious to present on the spot. This doesn't mean it's impossible or isn't worth it to complete these activities, but it does mean proper scaffolding is needed and guidance throughout.

For instance, let's say, Rachel and Youseef are students of your's and you know they both love theatre, so you can pair them with the shy students or students with IEP's so they feel more comfortable and have guidance from their peers within their groups. Perhaps just putting yourself on the spot demonstrating improv with random prompts that the students say. It may be a tad bit awkward, clumsy, and chaotic, but the students will see that you are willing to do what you're asking of them.

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References:

glaceneige. (2008). The 2 best Newsflashes ever. [Youtube]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AotN5RN884E

Improv encyclopedia. Improv Encyclopedia. (n.d.). Retrieved May 9, 2022, from http://improvencyclopedia.org/references/5_Basic_Improv_Rules.html