Title – Using Drama to Improve Language & Literacy

By – Pat Lavigne

Primary Subject – Language Arts

Grade Level – K – 6

Suggested Time – 60 minutes each

Using Drama to enhance Language and Literacy

There are two sets of lesson plans. The first lesson plan is to act out an already written story read as a group. The second set is to develop a story as a class or individual and develop and (if desired) reader’s theatre play. Graphic Organizers are used to transition from one lesson to the next.

Lesson Plan to Act Out a Story Read as a Group

Objectives: students will be able to
• recall portions of a story,
  
• act out portions of a story,
  
• illustrate portions of a story,
  
• improve reading comprehension, and
  
• improve reading fluency.

Materials: Story, Graphic Organizer.

Activity 1: Read the story to the class asking questions about each page.

Activity 2: Map out the story with the appropriate Graphic Organizer (K/1 or 2-6).

Activity 3: Pass out a copy of the play to each child and assign a character to each student. Act out the reader’s theatre play with each group of children. There will be multiple groups and each group should get at least one chance to act out the play.

Lesson Plan to Create a New Story

Objectives: students will be able to
• recall portions of a story,
  
• act out portions of a story,
  
• illustrate portions of a story,
  
• improve reading comprehension, and
  
• improve reading fluency.

Materials: Story Graphic Organizer.

Activity 1: As a group determine the characters in the story and add them to the graphic organizer.

Activity 2: As a group determine the setting (time frame and location) and add these details to the graphic organizer.

Activity 3: As a group, determine the story line.

1. What is the basic theme of the story — create a title that depicts this.
   
2. What is the problem? To help determine the problem with kindergarten and first grade students, you may have to cue. Asking “What happened? UH OH!!! What happened?” will usually generate great problems. Add this to the 3rd block in the k/1 story plan.
   
3. What is the solution,
   
4. What events introduce the characters,
   
5. What events help solve the problem,
   
6. How does the story end?
   
7. Write all of this on the chalk board, white board or overhead — to enhance student participation, have students write this out. Using overhead transparencies assist small groups in developing their play because they can take the overhead for their group play into their small groups for the small group work. For older children, walk through as a group a story then have students write a play in small groups with a graphic organizer.

Activity 4: Add dialogue to the graphic organizer. Do this with the whole class with Kindergartners and First Graders. For second grade on up, do an example as a group and then break class up into small groups and have them complete a graphic organizer together. Ensure that students know that they must use dialogue to communicate what is happening, including who, where, when and key events. It really helps if each person can make up a character that they will act out themselves and then they can add their own dialogue. You will have to walk around to ensure that groups follow the events and main themes.

Activity 5: Take the dialogue from the graphic organizer and either type up the play yourself or have older students type the dialogue up as a play.

Activity 6: Have each group act out their play. You can video tape this and kids love it!! With Kindergartners and First Graders, making large cue cards is better than giving them their own copy during the acting session. Older students can use the paper copy of the play, or can make their own cue cards.

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Pat Lavigne

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