Drawing Personalities

Corrie Ball

OBJECTIVES:

To stimulate creativity and review vocab

PROCEDURE:

1. Give each student a paper and tell them they have 3 minutes to draw a person. Try to get them to make original characters, because it requires them to have to infer more later. Stick to the time limit. A greater amount of time will result in better drawings, but the people who don't like drawing will get frustrated and it sometimes works best when the drawings aren't that great, because, again, it requires them to be more creative. If they ask, tell them it works better if they draw the whole person, not just a face, but really anything they draw will work. I like to draw a picture at the same time as them, and then either:

• Answer some questions about your drawing together (before moving to #2) to get the “creative juices” flowing and to help them understand the activity. 　　　　　　　　　　　

• Do the questions along with them so that they have an example. Giving them examples works well if you are making them write full sentences, because then you can answer quickly and underline the correct grammar. It can also help them quickly understand the question/answer without explaining in Japanese, but it also allows them to copy.

2. Tell them to stop drawing and pass the paper to their left. I like to give the job of time keeper to the JTE. It is an easy job that helps to make them feel included, and the students are less likely to whine about needing more time if there is an “official time keeper”. If making your drawing at the same time as the students, make sure to make a big deal about stopping when the JTE says stop and having something humorously unfinished about it to show that it is okay. This activity is possible in rows or in a circle. The idea is to have the original paper be passed around to as many people as possible, so the last person in the row would pass behind them, not give it to the first person in their row.

3. Ask them a question about the person they are looking at. A good way to start is either “Is it a girl or a boy?” or “What is his/her name?” Don't give them too much time. Maybe 30 or 45 seconds, and then 1-2 minutes for the difficult questions at the end. “Favorite” questions are really easy and fun.

4. Tell them to stop writing and pass the paper to their left. You have to keep this moving or you will never finish. Some students will never be able to decide. A quick tempo will get the results to become more of a “free association” type of deal, which is what you want. The best way to do this is to start with easy questions and save the harder ones for later. If you anticipate the vocab to be a problem, let them use their book, show pictures, or explain the question in Japanese. Be careful with giving them examples – make sure there are several to choose from because they will just pick whatever you give them and the whole point of this lesson is to try to get them to be more creative and think independently. Personally, for this lesson, I would rather have them understand the question and answer creatively in Japanese than I would have them give an uncreative answer. Another option is to create a worksheet with the sentences written out with blanks and an extensive toolbox, but this requires a lot more prep, probably isn't necessary, and doesn't give the same listening practice as asking them questions verbally.

5. When you run out of questions or time, give the paper back to the owner. The owner will then have detailed description about their drawing. For advanced students, you can have them write a paragraph introducing this person, write a short story about a day in the life of the person, or pretend to be that person, introducing themselves and asking questions to each other. For mid-level students, you can use the worksheet answers to help them practice Q & A. For beginner students, you can review the questions and answers together as a group, and call on volunteers to give answers. Or you can have each student stand up with their drawing, and ask them to answer one of the questions.

VARIATIONS:

1. Use this activity in conjunction with the drawing a monster activity. Use the monster they drew for step one, and then do this activity to determine his/her personality.

2. Use the same rotation and do the activity in reverse. Ex/ Give them a statement, and they have to draw it. This doesn't require them to infer things about a picture, but it does give them listening practice, and can be done in a way that still allows for a lot of creativity.

• Get everyone to make the same picture, using directions and/or “there” statements. Ex/ Draw a girl. Draw a dog to the left of the girl. There is a sun in the sky,etc. You can do it twice, having everyone do it individually the first time for practice, and then making it into a game where each person on a team draws on of the statements. You can then judge for accuracy and cuteness.

• Give them statements with more flexibility. Draw a girl, Draw the girl's pet, Draw the girl's favorite food, Draw the weather, Etc.

NOTES:

• My Creative Writing professor in college did this with us as part of a lesson on character development, so this activity is definitely not limited to JHS. Questions can be made a lot more difficult – What is this person's biggest secret? What is her motto? What is her personal theme song? Would you be friends with this person? What job does her secret crush have? Who is her idol? Etc.

• I have used this activity with all JHS grades and with my Eikawa class and it was a success each time. I believe that a couple people have also tried it in high school classes. The only problem is that you have to be strict with the time limits or else it can take forever. That being said, it can take younger students a long time to write the letters in English, so sometimes you have to adapt to that.

• This is a great activity because it is so flexible. The questions can be simple or complex, and the answers can be one word answers or complete sentences. It can be a powerful review activity, a fun filler activity, or a great activity for target words like “favorite”.

• I haven’t ever used this template before. I usually use blank paper, but I think a template might work better. Here’s a sample template with examples of questions and vocabulary that the students should know by the end of New Horizon Book 1 (with the exception of the bold and underlined words). The page numbers are included for your benefit, but might slow the student’s down. If using the template, I would suggest having them turn to that page before announcing the question.

WORKSHEETS and HANDOUTS:

The worksheet for this lesson is here