Encourage your students to exercise their imaginations and write with courage and conviction. Using music from a wide variety of cultures, students will develop good listening skills and write from the heart using their own voices. This aural exercise will help students begin to think creatively.
Students will use drama to analyze characters in the text A Bad Case of Stripes by David Shannon. After partaking in an interactive read-aloud of the text, students will all take on roles of characters in story. We will step into a role drama where we analyze the major problem present in the story. In character, we will together present possible solutions for the story. Students will then independently write their own ending to the story. We will read the ending of the text aloud and then have a class discussion/reflection about our student devised endings.
This lesson invites students to explore the life of Paul Revere through the lens of a painting of the Midnight Run. Using the painting as a springboard, students write and enact a poem illustrating the event. This exercise is a wonderful tool to increase presentation skills, empathy and ensemble in your classroom.
This lesson invites students to derive inspiration from photographs (portraits and people, historical events and images depicting strife or struggle, etc.) based around a given time period. These images serve as impetus to write monologues and create improvisational skits engaging students in a brand new way!
This lesson invites students to derive inspiration from photographs (portraits and people, historical events and images depicting strife or struggle, etc.) based around a given time period. These images serve as impetus to write monologues and create improvisational skits engaging students in a brand new way!