Character Mastery with the Improvisational Puppets Program

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Citation: Ruth Huard. (1998) Character Mastery with the Improvisational Puppets Program. In KSL-98-11, February,1998.

Publication techreport ( Edit )
type Technical Report
bibtype techreport
Bibtex basics
author Ruth Huard
title Character Mastery with the Improvisational Puppets Program
number KSL-98-11
institution Knowledge Systems, AI Laboratory
year 1998
month February
Bibtex more
Access Paper
abstract Characters can make a story come alive. Characters are animate beings with personalities, emotions, and motivations. They move in time and space of a story, interacting with others, reflecting, experiencing, and taking action (Wolf & Gearhart, 1993). The stories which captivate us are ones not only with an exciting plot, but ones with dynamic, engaging characters. In general, in-depth characterization is critical to a good story (Allen & Bradley, 1993; Galda, 1989; Phillips & Steiner, 1985), and by focusing on characterization, storycrafting can become an arena for developing a more mature understanding of others (Cowie, 1983; Fox, 1991; Polkinghorne, 1988). Character mastery refers to our ability to create dynamic and well-developed characters and our ability to have a coherent understanding of these characters. Given that character mastery is important to literacy development as well as the social-psychological understanding of others, this study investigated the environments which support this skill. In particular, I examined first-grade children's story production, story comprehension, and person-perception skills, prior to and after using a computerized interactive storycrafting program called Improvisational Puppets versus using a more traditional storycrafting activity, namely puppetry. This research shows that experience with the Improvisational Puppets system does facilitate children's character mastery development, particularly children's ability to craft and understand stories with in-depth characters and their person-perception skills. After using the Improv Puppets for three sessions, the children were more likely to provide elaborate descriptions of their characters (e.g., provide psychological descriptors such as general personality attributions); show meaningful relationships between characters; and mention an overarching attribute of the main characters that framed the story events and the character's actions/behavior. In terms of person-perception, the majority of children's person descriptions included a more comprehensive range of internal states and attributes. In addition, the Improv Puppets children were more likely to mention a general relationship between person's attributes (whether psychological or peripheral) and the person's actions/behavior. These findings suggest that the Improv Puppets is an appropriate environment for children to learn about characters in stories and in everyday life.

KSL Technical Report ID: KSL-98-11
Facts about Character Mastery with the Improvisational Puppets ProgramRDF feed
Abstract Characters can make a story come alive. C … Characters can make a story come alive. Characters are animate beings with personalities, emotions, and motivations. They move in time and space of a story, interacting with others, reflecting, experiencing, and taking action (Wolf & Gearhart, 1993). The stories which captivate us are ones not only with an exciting plot, but ones with dynamic, engaging characters. In general, in-depth characterization is critical to a good story (Allen & Bradley, 1993; Galda, 1989; Phillips & Steiner, 1985), and by focusing on characterization, storycrafting can become an arena for developing a more mature understanding of others (Cowie, 1983; Fox, 1991; Polkinghorne, 1988). Character mastery refers to our ability to create dynamic and well-developed characters and our ability to have a coherent understanding of these characters. Given that character mastery is important to literacy development as well as the social-psychological understanding of others, this study investigated the environments which support this skill. In particular, I examined first-grade children's story production, story comprehension, and person-perception skills, prior to and after using a computerized interactive storycrafting program called Improvisational Puppets versus using a more traditional storycrafting activity, namely puppetry. This research shows that experience with the Improvisational Puppets system does facilitate children's character mastery development, particularly children's ability to craft and understand stories with in-depth characters and their person-perception skills. After using the Improv Puppets for three sessions, the children were more likely to provide elaborate descriptions of their characters (e.g., provide psychological descriptors such as general personality attributions); show meaningful relationships between characters; and mention an overarching attribute of the main characters that framed the story events and the character's actions/behavior. In terms of person-perception, the majority of children's person descriptions included a more comprehensive range of internal states and attributes. In addition, the Improv Puppets children were more likely to mention a general relationship between person's attributes (whether psychological or peripheral) and the person's actions/behavior. These findings suggest that the Improv Puppets is an appropriate environment for children to learn about characters in stories and in everyday life. haracters in stories and in everyday life.
Author Ruth Huard  +
Bibtype techreport  +
Has author Ruth Huard  +
Has identifier KSL-98-11  +
Has publishing details February,1998  +
Has title Character Mastery with the Improvisational Puppets Program  +
Has where published KSL-98-11  +
Has year 1998  +
Institution Knowledge Systems, AI Laboratory  +
Ksl tr id KSL-98-11  +
Month February  +
Number KSL-98-11  +
Process note NO  +
Title Character Mastery with the Improvisational Puppets Program  +
Year 1998  +
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