Reader's Theater
Katrin Beinroth & Kim Leimer, International Charter School, Pawtucket, RI
Grade: Fourth
Content Area: Reading
Time Frame of Unit:
Ten 90-minute lessons
Language(s) of Lessons: English for 5 days, Spanish for 5 days
Unit Theme: Understanding Characters |
Standards to Be Addressed
New England Common Assessment Program Reading Grade Level
Expectations (June 2004 draft)
- R–4–4.1: Identify or describe character(s), setting, problem/ solution,
major events, or plot, as appropriate to text; identify any significant
changes in character(s) over time.
- R–4–5.2: Describe main characters’ physical characteristics or
personality traits; provide examples of thoughts, words, or actions that
reveal characters’ personality traits.
- R–4–5.6: Identify causes or effects, including possible motives of
characters.
- R–4–6.1: Demonstrate knowledge of the use of literary elements and
devices (e.g., imagery and exaggeration) to interpret intended meanings.
International Charter School Grade Level Expectations–Speaking and
Listening
- Recite brief poems (two or three stanzas), soliloquies, or dramatic
dialogues, using clear diction, tempo, volume, and phrasing.
- Summarize major ideas and supporting evidence for them presented in
spoken messages and formal presentations.
Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century
- Standard 2.1: Students demonstrate an understanding of the relationship
between the practices and perspectives of the culture studied.
- Standard 4.2: Students demonstrate understanding of the concept of
culture through comparisons of the cultures studied and their own.
Guiding Questions
- How do writers, readers, and actors bring characters to life?
- How can readers use textual clues to create mental images and interpret
characters’ moods and actions?
- How do readers use schemas to understand characters?
- How are traditions similar/different between cultures?
- How do cultural traditions shape our perspectives/upbringing?
Big Ideas
- Readers create mental images of characters’ personae and actions, based
on aspects of text.
- Readers can better understand a text by thinking about and discussing
characters’ motivations and relationships to other characters.
- Readers can use prior knowledge to understand characters.
- Different cultures have their own portrayals of the same character or
legend, but some elements are universal.
Background/Prior Knowledge to be Activated in the Unit
- Experience with the performance of stories, such as books read aloud and
theater productions
- Familiarity with various types of characters from fairy tales, legends,
and popular children’s fiction
- Knowledge of cultural elements (in particular, specific characters)
associated with traditional holidays
Objectives
Content Area Skills and Concepts
- Making and confirming predictions about text using prior knowledge and
textual clues, such as titles, topic sentences, key words, and foreshadowing
- Visualizing—creating images of setting, characters, and events—based on
aspects of text
- Drawing inferences about cause and effect
- Identifying thoughts, words, or actions that reveal characters’
personality traits
Language Skills
- Reading aloud with appropriate expression and fluency
- Understanding vocabulary: mental image, schema, foreshadowing,
visualize, mood, character, traits
- Understanding idioms and exaggerated descriptions of characters in the
text
Teaching/Learning Activities
Day 1: Students browse through a selection of scripts for Readers’ Theater.
The teacher guides a class discussion to identify the elements of Readers’
Theater and to help students understand how to use the scripts. Students form
groups of six with at least one English dominant speaker in each group. Each
member of the group receives a copy of the script for the play A Baker’s Dozen:
A Saint Nicholas Tale by Aaron Shepard. The play has two speaking roles and four
narrators. In their groups, students read through their scripts, choose parts,
and mark their lines to practice as homework.
Day 2: The students gain an understanding of the characters by identifying words
and phrases that suggest character traits, sketching their mental image of the
characters, discussing their sketches, and rereading their scripts aloud with
appropriate expression. They compare the character of St. Nicholas and the Dutch
St. Nicholas celebration in the play to other cultures’ traditions.
Day 3: Students form new groups, and each group chooses a Readers’ Theatre
script. The size of each group matches the number of characters in the script.
In their groups, students read through their scripts, choose parts, and mark
their lines to practice as homework.
Day 4: In their groups, students read through their scripts aloud, and
discuss the plot, focusing on characters’ motivations and interactions. Students
practice reading their scripts with expression. They also complete a written
response to the script focusing on their mental image of the characters. The
teacher circulates among the groups to provide language support.
Day 5: Whole-class performance; students offer feedback on performances.
Days 6-10: The process is repeated in the other language (Spanish) with
different texts. The cultural focus throughout the Spanish cycle is on values
and beliefs. As much as possible, the teacher focuses attention on beliefs and
values that help to explain the behavior of the characters, and encourages the
class to consider the extent to which these beliefs and values are the same or
different across cultures.
Follow-up: The class performs several plays for other classes.
Throughout the cycle, the teacher provides mini-lessons as needed on the
following areas:
- Working as a group without the teacher (e.g., how to provide feedback to
group members)
- Portraying characters using schemas based on the text
- Reading aloud with appropriate expression and fluency
- Performing in front of an audience
Materials/Resources
- Several copies of a variety of Readers’ Theater scripts
- Transparency of The Baker’s Dozen
- Copies of
The Baker’s
Dozen for the students
- Blank transparencies
- Paper, highlighters, colored pencils
- Pair/group work checklist
Online Resources:
-
Readers’ Theater scripts and resources, primarily in English, but some
in Spanish
- More than 23
volumes of Readers’ Theater scripts for a variety of grade levels and
content areas, most in English, but some (such as Don Quixote in America by
Resurreccíon Espinosa) in English and Spanish
Assessment
Both self-assessment and teacher assessment rubrics are used to assess
students understanding of the content and language objectives. Written responses
from days two and four should be assessed with regard to students’ use of
information given in the text to infer their characterizations. Self-assessment
rubrics for the performance evaluate the student’s success in reading aloud with
appropriate expression and fluency.
Teacher checklist for group work, noting how well students are able to work
cooperatively with their peers and to provide constructive feedback to each
other.