THEATRE INTEGRATION
Take a leap! Integrate theatre into YOUR literacy instruction. Many teachers feel intimidated by the idea of leading students in dramatic activities, but you don't have to! Theatre is all about the students leading eachother and engaging in a heavy communication and collaborative classroom activities. In fact, most dramatic activites do not require teachers to have direct theatre expereince at all!
"Research has shown that children who participate in classroom drama activities develop verbal skills that transfer to new materials not enacted in class."
Fun Ways to Integrate!
Character Traits Show
Have your guided reading groups act out the character traits that describe one of the characters in a book they are reading. Toss the names of the characters in a bag. Have the students pull out a character name (think: Severus Snape, Mrs. Weasley, Dumbledore, etc.). One at a time, have students act out the traits they believe belong to the character they were assigned without using the character’s name in their performance. Encourage the rest of the guided reading group to guess which character the actor is portraying.
Dramatic Story Reenactments
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Develops children's narrative competence
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Children act out or use puppets to informally perfom the stories they recreate
NASAA-ARTS
How Can Theatre Integration Help My Students?
Communication: Develops both verbal and nonverbal communication skills, as well as encouraging active listening.
Collaboration: Helps students develop their ability to work cooperatively while responding to a given task. All students to predict, plan, and organize information.
Experimental Learning: Provides active instructional opportunities suitable for all students with different levels of ability.
Multiple Intelligences: Simultaneously addresses all aspects of learning: interpersonal, intrapersonal, cognitive, emotional, kinesthetic, ethical, and social.
Character Development: Develops trust, patience, perseverance, and strong interpersonal relationships.
Creativity: Encourages students to use their imagination through either planned or spontaneous dramatic action where unique and individual responses are highly valued.
Community: Helps bridge diverse cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds, allowing students to consider different values and responses.
Self-awareness: Helps students understand themselves and others. It allows them to explore a variety of social roles, encouraging them to identify and empathize with others.
George Lohmann (2008)
Wax Museum Productions
Have students research a historical figure. They present their research by dressing up like the person they studied and standing still like a wax figure. Encourage your students to consider how their historical figure might stand (think: is Abraham Lincoln poised and tall? Is Babe Ruth swinging a bat?). When their “buttons” are pushed, students spring to life as their historical figures and share key facts in the first person.
Reader's Theatre
A great way to enrich your students’ reading practice and bring joy to reading class at the same time! In Reader's Theater, students perform by reading scripts using vocal expression created from grade-level books or stories. At the same time, it builds valuable skills, increasing comprehension and fluency. With a little adaptation, Reader's Theater can be performed with many kinds of literature: picture books, short stories, parts of novels, poetry, folk tales, works of nonfiction, or newspaper or magazine articles.
Write a Play Scene
Besides writing a traditional narrative, have students create a scene from their own play. This is a great way for students to experiment with dialogue. Using a story or novel you are studying, or a simple fairy tale that everyone knows, have students write a missing scene. What were the three bears doing before they came home? What did happen to the golden ticket winners after they left Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory? Encourage the students to use dialogue and stage directions to clearly communicate the beginning, middle and end of their scene.
Host a Classroom Talk Show
A talk show is a great way to have your students practice speaking fluently and confidently in front of an audience. If you are using this activity for cross-curricular learning, perhaps your student guests are historic figures or characters from literature. If you are using this activity as a theater education tool, pick characters from a play your students are exploring. Invite your guests on stage and interview them about relevant moments from history or the story. Encourage your student actors to answer in the first person and consider how their character might sit, talk, and feel about the various topics explored. Why not take a few questions from the studio audience?
Research from WE are TEACHERS
