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6 Comments

  1. Hi there,
    First off – I love your website. As a newbie drama teacher, it has seriously been so helpful!
    Secondly, I wanted to let you know that I played this game today with my junior students (grade 5 and 6s) and they absolutely loved it. It took a few minutes to catch on and understand but as soon as they did, they were right into the role playing and improvisation.
    The only thing is that I did have a few shy students who did not want to participate. I see above that you did it in a circle but I do drama in their classrooms and we don’t have the space to make a circle. Is there any other adaptation or suggestion you might have to get those shy students up and willing to try it?

    Thanks again!

  2. Hi Justin,
    I’ve been trying to figure out how you were running space jump that made it work so brilliantly. I’ve found similar problems with space jump such that I try and avoid using it in class.
    So I’m wondering how specifically you run the game, and any reflections you might have had since when you posted this. You say that you ran it much faster than usual, but were you the one indicating when someone should jump in? Do they take it in turns or is it whoever has an idea? How did you increase the pacing?

    Thanks in advance

    1. Thanks for your comment Tim. I played Speed Space Jump again as recent as yesterday when you posted your comment. If they are juniors new to Drama class, I will start Space Jump the easy way in a circle and build up to three players in the scene. Because the students will be shy or nervous at this stage, I choose to run the game in turns around the circle. When they are more confident, I will ask students to randomly volunteer to enter the space. When they are super-confident, we will play Space Jump in teams of four, Theatresports style. But when playing Speed Space Jump in the circle, I still have students enter in order around the circle, but at high speed. I still prompt the next girl, such as “Caroline, your turn! Be Quick!”. Time duration per scene inside the circle may be ten seconds or less. I play it so fast (and loud!) it is frenetic! The students do not have enough time to overthink their “scene” before entering the space (which merely blocks their creativity), be nervous, shy, or worry about what other classmates will think of what they do. It is PURE UNADULTERATED IMPROV!

      1. Fantastic! Thanks for the rundown.
        Currently I’m running a single class of year 7-9 students with wildly differing experience in drama. The subject just runs for a single term, so it should be a wild ride.

  3. Hi Sonja,

    I have now added to this post instructions for how to play Space Jump and a video example for you to see.

    – Justin

  4. sonja brown says:

    Would it be possible to post a video of this game in action? It would greatly help me to understand the game!