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...

Charlie Brown may not feel the Christmas spirit this year, but your elementary students can use the season to practice important cross-curricular skills! A set of worksheets and activities based on A Charlie Brown Christmas guide...

A great actor has the ability to make or break a play. A series of lesson plans related to William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar looks closely at the choices actors make during a production of the play to help provide insight into the...

The task of creating a set for a theater production may leave theater arts students asking where to begin. Set their minds at ease with a packet that not only provides information about the elements of design, but also guides them...

Students participate in a reader's theater using farm animals in the novella Animal Farm. In this Animal Farm lesson plan, students evaluate interpretations using the text, personal experience, and historical events.

Students read The Crucible in order to investigate the McCarthy era and the Hollywood Blacklist. Students watch video clips of the McCarthy witch hunts and investigate the time period through online research. Students recreate sections...

Students investigate the dramatic elements of The Crucible. In this drama instructional activity, students explore the elements and themes of the Arthur Miller play as they read the play and watch performances of some of the acts....

In this reading worksheet, students participate in a 2 character reader's theater play based on the book If You Take a Mouse to School.

Students explore expressive reading. For this literature lesson, students read the book The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and interpret key themes. Students perform a different version of the text.

Compile a promptbook with your young theater designers using a scene from Taming of the Shrew. The lesson outlines several activities, though it doesn't provide any examples of a promptbook or text from the play. Additionally, it...

Young scholars describe to a partner theater experiences they have had in their lives that were memorable, and analyze why. They study about one director's original artistic choices for staging Shakespeare by reading and discussing...

High schoolers participate in a performance of Macbeth using the lighting techniques that were employed during the Shakespearean era. Working in groups, student reenact a scene. Afterward they discuss the challenges of working with...

Students act out the Civil War through reader's theater. In this performing arts instructional activity, students research the Civil War and find costumes, props and scenery appropriate to the time period. They become characters from the...

Do figures of speech enhance a play or story? In small groups, learners locate and describe figures of speech they find while reading a reader's theater play. After making predictions, they describe how the figures of speech make the...

Kids get up and act! To promote inventiveness, timing, and clowning, they pair up and act as though they are looking in a mirror. Child A does a move while child B attempts to mimic it as closely as possible. This is a fun activity that...

Shakespeare's Macbeth (Act II, Scenes I and II) lacks explicit details of the murder of King Duncan, yet the author creates an atmosphere that allows us to visualize the event. Readers interpret the "Dagger Speech" by writing stage...

Students study Greek literature. In this Greek tragedies lesson, students explore the dance-dramas of Martha Graham. Students study the choreography that brings ancient Greek literature to life.

Students design theater programs which show their understanding of William Shakespeare's plays. They design original art to include in the programs.

After reading Act II of The Tragedy of Macbeth, give your class this prompt to complete. One other question is listed along with information regarding the divine right of kings. A full plan is not written out here, but the prompt is a...

Students investigate the Middle Ages and it's relation to the theater.  In this acting activity, students read Arthurian stories form the Middle Ages and practice using vocabulary words from the Medieval Times.  Students write...

Read the short reading passage entitled "Clean Water Act" to help your class build reading fluency and comprehension. While most questions focus on recall, learners are asked to use the context to define select vocabulary words. This...

Students review Emily Dickinson's biography and examine themes and forms of some of her poems. They measure ways Graham integrates aspects of Dickinson's life and the themes and forms of her poetry into Letters to the World.

Identify specific words and events from the different acts and scenes in The Tragedy of Hamlet by William Shakespeare. Some context and the exact act and scene are given for which you provide the action or character that belongs in that...