The Second City Guide to Improv in the Classroom: Using Improvisation to Teach Skills and Boost Learning

by Katherine S. McKnight, Mary Scruggs

Most people know The Second City as an innovative school for improvisation that has turned out leading talents such as Alan Arkin, Bill Murray, Stephen Colbert, and Tina Fey. This groundbreaking company has also trained thousands of educators and students through its Improvisation for Creative Pedagogy program, which uses improv exercises to teach a wide variety of content areas, and boost skills that are crucial for student listening, teamwork, communication, idea-generation, vocabulary, and more.

Genres: Education

208 pages, Paperback

First published May 9, 2008

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every theatre kid probably knows all of these games, but this book has been different for its exquisite use of photographs to explain almost every single game in the book. This book is also what I advocate for: using arts in education. That's how I learned (Probably because I'm a theatre kid) use of different art forms for educational use, but improvisation improves speech, teamwork, creative thinking, self confidence...and its fun!

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Intended for working in the K-8 classroom, this book is a well-illustrated how-to book on introducing improvisation. The first half explains the exercises, and the second half pulls the exercises into lesson plans with standards from specific teaching systems. These were good examples of how to apply standards, but this part of the book is surely already out of date if relevant at all for those using it.

While the book is aimed at the learning benefits for K-8 students, I felt like there were enough good ideas to be used in other situations. I plan on using some with grownups in a retreat. The suggestions for "sidecoaching" in the games will come in very handy, ways of encouraging growth without telling participants they are doing it wrong, apropos since improvisation is all about Yes! And!

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even though this book is written for teachers K-8, there are lots of fun ideas that I know high schoolers will enjoy participating in. I have thought of several different classes where I can use even the same exercises.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am teaching an improv class this summer and this was suggested to me as a great assistance guide. It was full of really interesting info as well as lots of activities and lesson plans. I haven't taught the class yet so hopefully these activities will go well with my class next week.

[Carolanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is full of easy and fun games along with good ideas for ways to incorporate improv into the curriculum. I used it to help guide after school improv/drama clubs and had a lot of fun.