Lesson Overview:
The Olympics have showcased many great athletes and their achievements on and off the Olympic arena. In this lesson, students research biographical information about a selected Olympic athlete. Students assume the persona of that athlete and are interviewed. Students will also conduct interviews of other students portraying the athletes they researched. The class will then create tableaus of various moments in these athletes' lives.
Length of Lesson:
Four 45-minute class periods
Instructional Objectives:
Students will:
- acquire knowledge about Olympic sports.
- read about and research the lives of Olympic athletes.
- develop a list of research questions about Olympic athletes.
- develop a list of interview questions for the Olympic athletes.
- assume the identity of an athlete during an interview.
- prepare for the role of an interviewer.
- create a tableau depicting an Olympic moment in time.
Supplies:
- Television with VCR or DVD player
- Video tape clips of talk show hosts interviewing celebrities
- Various biographies of Olympic athletes
- Olympic resource books
- Selected Olympic photographs for the class to help with the creation of tableaus
- Prepared list of Olympic athletes for student selection
- Journals or notebooks
- Pencils or pens
Instructional Plan:
If you have access to a video of the Olympics from your
local video store or you have taped some of the Olympic
events from television, have this playing while the students
are entering the room. Consider ordering Golden Moments
of the Olympic Games 1896-1996.
As a warm up activity, place the following words and
definitions on the board. Call on students to read the word
and definition. Then, have students write a meaningful sentence
using each word.
freeze: a signal given to actors to
stop all movement and sound
pantomime: a performance by actors without using voice
tableau: a representation of a scene by a
group of persons who remain silent and motionless
When students have finished writing their sentences have
several read aloud and discuss if the usage of the word is
correct and if the sentence conveys the meaning of the word.
Next, ask the students to imagine that they are at the Olympics
watching events like they have just seen on the tape. Have them
brainstorm a list of the different sports they might see. List
these sports on chart paper or on the board so they can be referred to later in the lesson. Remind students that there are Winter and Summer Olympics and that the sports for each are different. You may want to chart each separately.
Discuss the different types of sports by talking about the
audience reaction to each sport. You might want to have students
think about the reaction of the spectators, the other athletes
watching the competition, the coaches, and the TV commentators.
If you have video footage of the Olympics, you could show them
sections of audience participation. If you do not have a video,
you could tape several events from sports reports on television
and use these. Talk about the various audience responses. Did
they differ from sport to sport? Did they differ by the person's
role (coach, parent, spectator)? Did there appear to be spectator
rules for the sport?
Next, ask students to think of a sport and how they would react
if they were in the audience watching the competition. Use tennis
as an example. Remind students that tennis is a sport played with
the audience silent while the ball is in play. Do a little play-by-play
acting as the sportscaster. Describe the action of the players and
where the ball is going. Hopefully, the class will follow along with their eyes and listen to the cues in your commentary. As you report, add a little drama, like a trip or a smashing backhand to score a point. When you have finished your tennis commentary, have students discuss how they felt as the audience. How were they reacting or behaving? Did they exhibit any special body language or body movement during your commentary? Discuss this briefly as a class.
Have students select two more Olympic sports, one from the
Summer Olympics and one from the Winter Olympics. They can use
the chart on the board if they are having trouble thinking of a
sport to select. Have students work in small groups to write
play-by-play announcements for their sports. Then have each
group read their play-by-play for the class. Remind the class
that they are to act as the spectators would for that sport.
At this point in the lesson, ask students if they ever
played freeze tag? If someone has, ask him explain the rules
to the class. If not, explain that when a person, usually the
leader, says "freeze," the person touched must remain motionless
in the position they were when they were touched. Explain that
in the next part of the lesson, you are going to say "freeze" at
certain times and the person or group who is performing must stop all motion.
Distribute the Play-by-Play Sports Announcements Info Sheet. Select students to pantomime the audience reactions to the play-by-play announcements. Discuss how these reactions differ. This can be done in groups or as a class. As students are involved in the pantomime, ask them to freeze, as if caught in the click of a camera's iris. If you have a Polaroid camera take a picture and pass it around so they can see what they looked like. Then have the announcer (student or teacher) describe another sporting event, very different from the first one, and have the students react as spectators. Take another picture, pass it around, and have students compare the spectator reactions in both photos. Discuss the reactions, body movements, hand gestures, facial expressions, etc. The whole exercise should take five minutes.
Athletes are frequently interviewed by sportscasters or talk
show hosts. View a five to ten minute segment of a talk show
host interviewing an athlete or celebrity. Ask the students to
note the types of questions asked by the interviewer. After viewing
the tape, discuss the kinds of questions that were asked.
You may want to make a list on the board. Was the interviewer able to draw out new, interesting, or controversial material from the person he was interviewing. Was the interviewer after general
information or were the questions more specific to help us understand the person being interviewed? Was there humor or was this a very serious interview? Does the style of the interviewer make a difference in the response of the person being interviewed? How did the interview make one question lead to another?
Did the interviewer seek the athlete's opinion about something?
Following this discussion, tell the students that they will
be researching an Olympic athlete. As part of this, they will
assume the personality of this athlete and be interviewed by
one of their classmates. All students will have a chance to be
both an athlete and an interviewer. Distribute the Interview
Questions worksheet and have the students work in pairs or small
groups to create questions. Then develop a master list of
questions by having one member from each group share their
questions while you make a master list on the board. These
questions will help to focus the students' research. There
should be a minimum of ten questions to ask the athlete.
Next, provide students with a list of Olympic athletes they
can select from to research. Take care to present a list
that is equally balanced between men and women, winter and
summer Olympic athletes, United States and international
athletes, and recent and long past participants. Students
should select an athlete and begin their research. At a
minimum, they need to gather enough information to answer
the interview questions.
A good resource for biographical information on Olympic
athletes is the International Olympic Committee.
A source for information on ancient Greek athletes is the Athlete's Stories Web site.
When the research has been completed, model how an interview
should be conducted. Select a student to be the interviewer/talk
show host to interview you. Assume the personality of an athlete
that you have already researched. For example, Jackie
Joyner-Kersee won gold medals for heptathlon (seven track and
field events for female athletes) at both the 1988 Seoul games
and the 1992 Barcelona and silver in 1984's Los Angeles games.
She also won a gold in 1988 and a bronze in 1992 for the long
jump. She is the first athlete to win three Olympic medals in
multi-event competition. She accomplished this despite having
exercise-induced asthma. Her brother also is a gold medallist
(1984 Los Angeles games). Her sister-in-law, Florence Griffith-Joyner also won two gold medals at the '88 games. Once this interview is completed, you might also want to model a second interview, this time taking the role of the talk show host.
Then, pair students up as interviewer and athlete. Allow a
maximum of five minutes for each interview. Have the students
switch roles. Once the interviews are completed, tell students
they are going to create tableaus. Refer to the definition of
a tableau at the beginning of the lesson.
Select photos showing Olympic moments. Divide the class into
groups and have the groups recreate the photos in tableaus.
Each group should select one person to be the photographer.
The definition of a tableaus can be found in Webster's Dictionary
Online. An actual description of
the complete process can be found at the Tinderbox Physical
Theater Web site.
In this exercise, have students discuss the actions and
feelings depicted in the photos of athletes and sporting events.
Photos may be printed from the following sites. CBS Sports on
line has a photo gallery. Eurosports from France has various photos of European Athletes.
For numerous photos of varying Olympics by one photographer,
LIFE offers several from various Olympics.
For example, a LIFE photo from the 1920 Antwerp Olympic games shows five men on a
track. The man literally flying to the finish of the 100-meter
race is American Charlie Paddock. Have students discuss the
photo first. What might be going through each person's mind?
Just a word or a phrase will do. Select students to recreate
the photo in a tableau. Then have them create a before the
photo and after the photo tableau. They present three different
pieces. What did each person have going through his mind for
each tableau?
Distribute a photo to each group and have the students
create a tableau based on the photo. The group photographer
serves as the outside eye and helps to make sure the tableaus
reflect the photographs. Each group recreates the photo along
with a before and after pieces. As a class, discuss what was
noticed in each tableau. What seemed true to the photo? Why?
How did the group come up with the ideas for the before and
after pieces?
Assessment:
Use the Assessment Rubric to assess your students' works.
Sources:
Print:
- Dorling Kindersley (Publisher). DK, The Olympic Games, Athens 1896-Sydney 2000. New York: Dorling Kindersley Publishing, Inc., 1997(as Chronicle of the Olympics), revised 2000.
- Glenny, Tamara, editor in chief. The Olympic Games. Time Machine. (May 1996)
- Johansen, Mila. 101 Theatre Games. Classics With a Twist. Players Press, Inc., 1994.
- Novelly, Maria C. Theatre Games for Young Performers. Colorado Springs, CO: Meriwether Publishing Ltd., 1985.
- Oxlade, Chris and David Ballheimer. Eyewitness Books Olympics. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999.
- Swartz, Larry. The New Dramathemes. Markham, Ontario, Canada: Pembroke Publishers, 2002.
- Thomas, Ron and Joe Herran. The Grolier Student Encyclopedia of the Olympic Games. Danbury, CT: Grolier Educational, 1996.
Media:
- Golden Moments of the Olympic Games 1896-1996. (4 Video Set) Columbia River Entertainment ASIN: B00000F07R, 1998
Web:
Authors:
-
Mary Beth Bauernschub, Teacher
Kingsford Elementary School
Mitchellville, MD
