"Whose Line Is It Anyway?" Improv Games (Grades 6-12)

 

Author: Jennifer Montalvo, Lockport Township High School, Illinois

 

Subject: Any

 

Objective: Primarily for basic review

 

Materials and Preparation: You may need some "props" depending on the type of improv game you want to play. These can be anything that relates to the content, brought by students or provided by teacher. Nothing has to be expensive.

 

Visit the following website for game ideas and their explanations:

http://www.whoseline.net/show/games.html

 

Student Grouping: small groups of 4 or less

 

The Play: Basically, you simply choose any of the games played on the show "Whose Line is it Anyway?" Use the website provided above to browse through the different improv game ideas. Obviously some will not be useful or appropriate. However a number of them can be used for a fun, quick, and comedic review of lesson and unit material and cost the teacher almost nothing in terms of preparation.

 

Scoring: No need; this is fun without competition (although if you choose you can score it like they do on the show).

 

Examples: Some games I have used:

 

• Advertisements/Ads (students sing a song to advertise a "product" related to content)

• Bad Applicants (students display weird/obnoxious body language/ways of responding to questions about content)

• Day Time Talk Show

• Emotion Option (discuss content using a given, fixed emotion)

• Film/Theater Styles (students act out content in a certain film style, i.e. horror, opera, etc.)

• Game Show

• Hey You Down There (student narrates informative video, as others act it out)

• Interrogation (students interrogate each other with questions from content)

• Interview (students answer questions as a famous person)

• Number of Words (students can only use a fixed number of words each)

• Questions Only (students can only respond in questions)

• Scenes from a Hat (students act out a content related scenario drawn from a hat)

• Soap Opera (students act out a scene about content as soap opera actors)

• Sound Effects (students act out a scene while another provides the sound effects)

• Sportscasters (students act out in slow motion while another describes the scene)

• Stand/Sit/Lie Down (at all times while discussing content related scene, someone must be sitting, standing, or lying down)

• Superheroes (students act as superheroes to solve a content related problem)

• Three-Headed Broadway Star (three students must sing a song related to content, but can only sing one word at a time)

 

Comments: You may want to show an episode of the show so that students who haven't seen it can get an idea about how to play.