I had planned on trying a reader's theater in an effort to get my students excited about their books, but my first foray into it came about completely by accident.
I had planned to read aloud to fourth and fifth graders from Christopher Paul Curtis' Newbery Award winning novel, Bud, Not Buddy. But when I learned that a fifth grade teacher was already reading that book with her class, that class became my first reader's theater performers. That class has acted out scenes not only from Curtis' book but also from books that they checked out of the library the previous week. The instructions I have given have been, one, choose a scene; two, discuss for a few minutes how you are going to act it out, and three, ad lib the lines, no memorization. Some students have acted out monologues, some have chosen their friends who are familiar with the same books and then chosen scenes from those books.
The first time I did it, a teacher was working on the other side of the room with a couple of students, and I apologized afterwards because I thought we had gotten too loud. Her comment was, "They were so excited!" And they were.
I'm hoping to expand this concept later, especially if I can get a hold of some props or costumes from popular books.
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