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Dramatization​
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Click to:

  • Understand perspective of other characters

  • Provide practice and experimentation with language

  • Improve comprehension of narrative and expository texts

  • Write script from narrative and expository text

Strategy

FOR KINDERGARTEN AND LOWER ELEMENTARY CHILDREN:

  1. Set up learning centers with opportunities for dramatization e.g. a store, a play kitchen, a building area).

  2. Students role play in these areas carrying on conversations that provide practice and experimentation with language.

  3. Use these opportunities to elicit, reinforce, and assess language. 

  4. Reading Stories

  • After reading a story with the students, dramatize it taking turns portraying the different characters and the narrator. 

Anchor 1
Advancing the Strategy

  • FOR UPPER ELEMENTARY THROUGH HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

  • Readers Theater

    • Students produce a dramatic reading.

    • After reading a selection in a content area (e.g., a selection on bees), students write a script for Readers’ Theater. 

    • Students perform a dramatic reading of the selection using their script. 

  • Scripts for Readers’ Theater do not need to be elaborate, but can be quite simple in structure and form. 

  • The following script is an example:

Bees buzz around the orange blossoms.

Bees buzz around the pretty pink mimosa.

Bees search for pollen and nectar to take to the hive.

Bees make honey from the nectar and pollen.

Bees make food for the colony and larvae.

Larvae will soon come out of the eggs to become pupae and then bees.

Bees swarm under the eaves of the house.

Bees swarm to protect their queen.

Bees swarm to find a safe place to build a new hive and start a new colony. 

  • A Readers Theater “cast” can have any number of students.

  • The example script has 9 sentences and could be performed by 2, 3, or 4 students.

    • With 3 readers, each one reads 3 lines. For example, Reader 1 reads lines 1, 5, and 9; Reader 2 reads lines 2, 4, and 7; Reader 3 reads 3, 6, and 8. 

  • The readers practice reading (signing) their lines clearly and with appropriate expression and then perform for the class. 

  • During the performance, the students use their scripts. 

Through script writing, the students receive specific experience and practice with English. (See McAnally, Rose, & Quigley, 2007, pp. 333-336 for details and examples of Readers’ Theater).

Anchor 2

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