Playshop Video

When working with some of the students in a 2^nd grade classroom on a video I found the results very interesting and opposite of what I originally  expected. I started the experience by asking a boy in the class that I thought would be very good at acting out a story. The boy is in the middle to upper range of his class and is always extremely talkative, constantly playing with toys that he keeps in his desk, and never shies. When I started with him and explained that I wanted him to create a story using the toys I had provided he seemed very skeptical. I told him to take a few minutes about to figure out what he wanted the story to be and to let me know when he was ready. He almost immediately said he was ready and played out a 15 second story. He did use some voices and accents but the story was extremely short and I could tell he wasn’t comfortable with the project.

After finishing with him, I went back into the classroom and asked a different boy and girl to come with me and try the project. When I explained it to them they seemed very excited and started working on a story together. I thought maybe by having two children work together they wouldn’t feel intimidated by the task. After the two of them agreed that they had worked out a story they began acting it out. However, the boy quickly started creating his own story. He should have saved the girls character (Woody) from falling off the cliff but instead decided to start a story with his own characters. I ended up stepping in and telling him to bring Woody back to keep the story going. Even then the two of them seemed to create a new story and were not exactly sure how to end it. After three minutes I finally told them it was ok to stop, since it seemed that they would have gone on forever.

I really enjoyed this project and I can definitely see myself using this in my classroom. I think that it would be much more beneficial if the students had more time to create a story and come up with their own characters. I think having them actually create some kind of a script or story to keep track of would be beneficial. I also wish that I had been able to let the students make the video on their own. I also liked seeing everyone else’s video in the class and it gave me more ideas on how to use this project with children. I liked how some people had their students create characters by drawing them as well as creating the background. I also thought it was interesting that the students were actors and actresses themselves in some of the videos.