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SUBMITTED BY: Matt Baumgartner     EDITED BY: Tatyana Safronova

Movie Star

GRAMMAR: Relative Pronoun (who)     EXAMPLE: Jim is a bum who is in the way.     DATE ADDED: 12-19-07 

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 35-50 min.
 
8 Votes: 4 Stars
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Brief Outline: Students pretend they are movie directors and choose their classmates for different roles. Then they interview each other to find out what they want to do in the movie.

 

Materials Needed:

 

Teaching Suggestions:

  • This game works best if done in three parts. So instead of explaining everything in one big 15-minute gulp which the students will forget, explain only the first part and then have them do it. After that, explain the next part, and then have them do it. And so on. Give them a time limit or they will take forever.

 

Detailed Explanation:

  1. Give the kiddies the worksheets, and tell them about how they are supposed to be movie directors. Explain that they need to choose 8 of their classmates, and write their names in the appropriate spaces on the worksheet. The appropriate spaces for names are under the word ‘Names’ in the big chart divided into three sections.
  2.  
    After they have made their choices, tell them they need to choose a role for each of their 'actors.' (The appropriate spaces for roles are under the word ‘Role’ in the big chart divided into three sections).
  3. Now they are supposed to interview their chosen classmates. In this step, the students will go to each of the classmates they mentioned on their worksheet, and inform them of the roles they will play (for example: “Hey Taro, you are a samurai! ...) and then ask them what they want to do as that character (“...That do you want to do?”). The asked classmate will then think of something they want to do. (The ‘Idea’ space is for this. The students are not limited to this selection; these are just suggestions). Then the interviewing student writes down in the appropriate space what their classmate said he or she wants to do. (The appropriate space for this section is under the word ‘Idea’ in the same chart).
  4. When these three sections are done, each section should look something like this:
                Name                           Role                              Idea              

    Taro

    samurai 

     sleep all day

  5. After the kids have completed this box, have them make sentences using their collected information. For example: ‘Taro is a samurai who sleeps all day.’
  6. They should do this for all 8 of their chosen classmates.
  7. Students can then, if there is time, read their sentences in front of the class, or make posters, or write a story about what each of their new characters do. It's up to you.

 

Variations:

  • Change the roles or put new ideas into the Idea Box. The idea is for the kids to have to describe something in two ways, so try to be creative with roles and ideas.

 

Tips/Cautions:

  • Keep the kids from bullying each other. Don’t let them say mean things to each other or let them choose roles or ideas which are mean or demeaning. Tell them that if they are mean to another kid, then you’ll be mean to them.
  •  

    Comments:

    • (Jan 25, 2012) Catherine said: This activity was great for all my classes. They really got excited when they could pick any role they wanted and got really creative to make up funny answers when they interviewed each other. I had them draw a picture and write a summary of the movie afterwards and gave them 4 fill in the blank sentences that was the minimum they had to use to describe their movie. I showed them my own example and they thought it was really fun. With this grammar point they could almost write whatever they wanted, so it was good to let them be creative.
    • (Jan 11, 2012) Anonymous said: "Tell them that if they are mean to another kid, then you’ll be mean to them." lol...