麻豆传媒入口

In teacher Katie Giordano鈥檚 classroom, fourth graders can鈥檛 wait to play Love It/Hate It, a popular improv game for character analysis that helps students practice perspective-taking and hone skills for persuasive writing. Giordano teaches at a public pre-K through 8 school called in Brooklyn, where theater and improvisation activities have a role to play in every classroom. Through a collaboration with a local arts organization, , teachers there have learned to use these games to bring more joy, connection, and movement into their lessons, which serves to deepen the students鈥� understanding of core content鈥攚hile they sharpen their executive function skills and build classroom community. 

When Love It/Hate It is an English language arts activity, one student is designated as the actor and stands in front of the room, ready to portray a literary character from a book that the class has been reading (in this case, , by Kelly Yang). Another student, sitting in the audience, is the 鈥渆motion conductor.鈥� Using hand signals, the emotion conductor leans toward 鈥渓ove it鈥� or 鈥渉ate it,鈥� and the actor improvises a monologue, toggling between those two emotions鈥攚hile in character. The actor must analyze the book鈥檚 main character, Mia, on the fly, by describing her challenges, triumphs, and problem-solving abilities鈥攅ngaging in making inferences and recalling text details in the process.

Beyond English language arts, Giordano has also used the game in her science lessons. 鈥淲e鈥檝e been learning about our New York City watershed and the human impact. And so they can easily be an expert and go from what they love about how amazing our watershed is and how it all works, to what they hate about the human impact on it,鈥� she says. By connecting Love It/Hate It to academic content, Giordano says, 鈥淚 can assess what they have understood and taken away from different lessons.鈥�

Giordano takes care to point to the importance of creating a supportive classroom environment where students feel comfortable and encouraged to participate, be vulnerable, and take risks. 鈥淚 think kids are very compassionate to begin with, but they really need to have that cultivated in the classroom,鈥� she says. 鈥淚f someone鈥檚 feeling nervous, we send them some 鈥榮hine鈥� to get up onstage. We always applaud someone, and I say, 鈥榃ow, that took a lot of courage and bravery. Let鈥檚 give them a celebration.鈥� And then the kids naturally start to do that on their own, and then I can take a step back and even have kids lead each other in these activities.鈥�

For more theater games that support learning, check out the many articles that Child鈥檚 Play NY founder Jocelyn Greene has written for 麻豆传媒入口. 

Editor鈥檚 note: This summary was written with support from 麻豆传媒入口鈥檚 custom AI tool.