Reader’s Theater – Another Teacher-Side Option

Earlier I wrote a post on types of teacher-side assignments for interactive notebooks. Here is another idea, and if you don’t use the notebooks it can be a useful stand-alone strategy.

I’m always on the look-out for new things to do, and while browsing proteacher, I read a post about someone writing a Reader’s Theater to put in their math interactive notebook. (Thanks, Catbells, for the idea!) It got my creative juices flowing and made me remember a reader’s theater training I had had several years ago. I ended up taking my article for the Civil Rights Amendments and re-writing it into a reader’s theater. It went smashingly – the kids had a great time, we re-read the content several times with no boredom or arguments, and they could easily use it to complete their student-side.

Tips on writing/adapting curriculum based reader’s theater:

• Choose a piece of writing that has the content you want to teach. It can be a story or a factual article.
• Don’t use character names – use numbers. This allows for greatest girl/boy flexibility.
• Try not to let any one number speak for too long – I like to change it up every sentence or two.
• Mix up the numbers throughout the reading so that students speak throughout the piece.
• For important parts, let all of the children speak. Add sound effects and action if you wish, but it is not necessary.

The training I received was based on Rosalynd Flinn’s work. This is her website, and there are several great samples – hopefully there is one you can use. I’m attaching a copy of the one I did with my students on Amendments 13 – 15. Our right hand assignment was a simple chart of the amendments, when they were ratified, and what rights the provided.

Reconstruction Amendment Reader’s Theater

Interactive Notebooks – Types of Teacher-side Assignments

My teacher-side assignments are usually either question strips, fill in the blank notes, or articles. These are my “go tos” when I sit down to plan those pages.

Question Strips

I use question strips most often when I want to guide students in reading their textbook or another type of nonfiction article. 7 – 10 questions will fit on a strip,depending on how involved the answer is to the question. I use a Word document in landscape orientation, then insert a table. Once I’ve formatted the individual column, I just cut and paste. Students work on them individually or in pairs, and then I review them with the class.

Fill in the Blank Notes

I use fill in the blank notes when I want to “tell the story” of the topic, with lots of visuals and possibly film clips. I create a powerpoint presentation with all of the relevant info, then export the outline to Word. I delete key words/people/phrases and replace them with blanks. The blanks will be filled from the lecture.

If it is more than one page, the notes can be easily formatted into a booklet. Occasionally I have students answer discussion questions from the notes before we move on to the right hand page.

Articles

Sometimes I will write, find, or otherwise cobble together an article that addresses the topic. We read it and do one of several active reading strategies with it. I like this strategy when the information they need to learn is fairly straightforward.

Those of you who use the interactive notebook, I would really love to hear about what you do on your teacher pages!

Here is a more recent post on another type of teacher-side assignment: reader’s theater.

Illustrated Outlines and Concept Maps – Interactive Notebooks Assignments

Sometimes you don’t have a lot time.

Sometimes your material just doesn’t “lend” itself to the incredibly creative.

And for notebooking newbies, sometimes you just need a place to start.

For these times, I like to turn to note-taking assignments like the concept map or the illustrated outline.

Note-taking, determining importance, paraphrasing – whatever you want to call it – is a skill that will be used throughout life.

Notes about this strategy:

• If the article has sub-headings built in, you can use those as your topics for the map or outline.
• If not, you can either provide students with topics or generate them with the class.
• I suggest that students take three notes for each topic in their own words.
• I ask that students color code, and illustrate their notes.

Sample Concept Map

 

Illustrated outlines are concept maps, all straightened out.

 

I actually use these to introduce the left-right concept.  I start with webs, then illustrated outlines, then allow them choice. Then I move on to the more involved notebook assignments.

Sensory Figures – An Interactive Notebook Assignment

Just finished reading about an important person? Defined the characteristics of a group of people – serfs, Roman soldiers, victims of disease? Do you want your students to internalize the information you just taught them?

It might be time for a sensory figure.

 

This assignment requires students to imagine themselves in the place of this person or group of people.

Have the students draw a figure to represent the person or group or give them a simple drawing for them to paste in the center of their page.

Then the students draw lines out from the figures eyes, ears, mouth, hands, and feet. At the end of the lines they complete sentence stems such as “I see ______________” “I hear _______________” “I walk ______________”

I usually ask for seven complete sentences based on the information. I encourage students who like to draw to add in addtional details if they want.

Another one that requires a good bit of modeling before you quit getting “I hear birds singing” , but once they get the hang of it, it is a great tool.

This is a sensory figure of a monk that a student completed after our monastery simulation.

These are of Black Death victims:

    

Sensory Figures of Serfs:

   

Other ideas – this works great for individuals or groups

• a hunter/gatherer
• a serf
• a Roman soldier
• an Egyptian pharaoh (generic or specific “Ramses II)

If you are trying to provide options, this works well with the comic strip (see post below) and a writing assignment.

I’ve recently written another post about introducing this assignment here.

Interactive Notebooks – Student Assignments Limited by Imagination Only

“Right is for Reflection”

This side of the notebook focuses on ways that students can process and be creative with the information that they learned on the left. The type of assignment is limited only by your imagination and the student’s creativity, yet they are based on the just learned content. Some teachers use the left side for these assignments, but I feel it makes more sense this way.

They can range from the simple – vocabulary activities, mind mapping. and illustrated outlines that focus more on organizing and illustrating facts . . .

             

to acrostics and other poetry, posters, and sensory figures that require students to go beyond the facts into interpretation . . .

      

The right side assignment gives a natural way for a teacher to offer choice to students and to differentiate instruction. The left side is the base content that everyone must know, the right side is process and product work, and that can be whatever the student needs it to be. I usually allocated 15-30 minutes of class time depending on the complexity of the assignment.

One of the paperwork issues I have with differentiation is how to record it and be fair. This way, I label my gradebook with page numbers,  and so as long as everyone has a NB45, it really doesn’t matter to the book whether the students page 45 is an acrostic or a wanted poster or a mind map.