A 20-page guide is a must-have for any instructor, seasoned veteran, or first year-teacher, using Arthur Miller's The Crucible as an anchor text. The guide begins with extensive background information about Miller and the McCarthy era...

Here's a great idea for your Parent/Family Night—host a Reader's Theater! Everything you need to organize the night, as well as a K-3 and a 4-7 script, is provided in the packet. 

Yes, Virginia, there really is a reader's theater script for "The Night Before Christmas." The exercise is a great way to productively channel pre-holiday energy.

In the effort to soothe the suffering of the Great Depression, New Deal programs funded a variety of approaches - including a theater project that proved controversial! Using documents such as oral histories, as well as photographs of...

Imagine living in the hold of a sailing ship for 63 days, enduring rough seas and autumn storms. As part of a study of the voyage of the Mayflower, class members examine an online resource that details life about the ship, watch a slide...

Everyone has a role to play. Young scholars step into history by taking on the roles of soldiers—both male and female—during the Civil War using a fictionalized play of what life was like on the battlefield. Pupils also examine the roles...

The Path to Women's Suffrage unit focuses on how Western Expansion was instrumental in gaining women the right to vote through the Nineteenth Amendment. Young historians analyze maps, examine primary source documents, and create a...

Using an informative video about French theater and drama, scholars learn about the idea of realism in the theater before taking a look at naturalism. Viewers hear about writing styles from Victor Hugo in his works Cromwell and Hernani,...

The Stamp Act, Paul Revere's ride, and the Boston Tea Party pushed American colonists to the tipping point that led to the American Revolution. Fifth graders research the key figures of the war, study the Declaration of Independence, and...

Does theater really influence society? In the nineteenth century, drama displays that depicted the treatment of different races actually contributed to the spread of racism. Scholars view images from such plays to gain a better...

Fight or flight? Could a play be so scary that it makes the audience want to run from the theater? Andre de Lorde actually had the dream of writing such a play. Scholars learn of him and other French playwrights that focused on the...

Chances are, you've got some precocious Matilda fans in your class! Use a thorough set of lesson plans to address Roald Dahl's classic novel about a bright girl who just wants to be understood. Vocabulary exercises, comprehension...

What teenager can't relate to the drama of a love triangle? Scholars put their literary skills to use in a gripping role-play drama. William Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona unfolds as the classroom becomes a stage of young actors.

Bring Julius Caesar to life with a reader's theatre approach that engages the entire class. The opening exercises model the importance of reading with expression while choral reading exercises permit class members to practice their...

For many people, Barack Obama's presidency was the next step in Martin Luther King, Jr's dream of America's future. Explore the dreams of Americans past and present, as well as the young Americans in your class, with a set of activities...

Nineteen Eighty-Four is a perfect text for an age of fake news and alternative facts. And what better way to introduce a new generation of readers to George Orwell's dystopian classic than with a reader's theatre version of the tale. The...

The opening chapters of Mark Twain's masterpiece, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, can be daunting for some readers. A reader's theater assignment divides the second chapter of the novel into a seven-role script, allowing readers to work...

Through a careful reading and examination of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, scholars take part in grand conversations about the novel's contents, slavery, and the impact the book had on it. Furthermore, learners analyze an...

Encourage class members to add expression and put themselves back in time during the Civil War with a reader's theater activity. The scripts include dialogue on what it was like for the Union and Confederate sides during this time.

Plays are meant to be performed! After reading the entire play, invite your learners to choose a scene from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead that relates to earlier class discussion about characters, motifs, and themes to interpret...

Immerse your class in a good story with an extensive resource featuring reader's theater techniques. The worksheets are designed for both teacher and student, and carefully explain how to organize, write, and perform stories in a...

Put on an eight-actor show based on Pan Munoz Ryan's When Marian Sang: The True Recital of Marian Anderson. The resource comes with a color-coded script that includes some images from the picture book.

If you are reading Judy Freeman's Oh No! or your class loves animals, use a reader's theater exercise to bring the story to life. After assigning 12 parts to your young actors, have them act out the story with a script that will be...