Theatre Word of the Week: Mime

This week's theatre word of the week is MIME. The students in my 6th grade class filled out KWL charts on mime before I told them the definition and showed them examples, and here is what I found out they knew/wanted to know.

WHAT I KNOW:

• act without talking
• stay silent
• can act out anything
• street performance
• add sound effects
• stay focused
• big imagination
• paint faces
• wear black

WHAT I WANT TO KNOW:

• Can you talk in mime?
• Who first came up with miming?
• What's the purpose?
• How do you stay serious?
• How do they make it look so real?
• Why are they silent?

Then we watched some examples of mime, including this clip from Marcel Marceau:

After the video clips were watched we came up with this definition as a class:

mime-to silently act using elaborate facial expressions and body movements

Then we filled out our charts to show what we have learned so far:

WHAT I LEARNED:

• It is an old art form
• It is important to have many facial expressions
• Not all mimes wear make-up
• Sometimes mimes use props

Stop by our classroom next week for some examples of mime from our very own 6th graders!

See you then!