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From Issue #11, Winter
2006
Once
Upon A Time....With Readers Theatre by Lucy Rioux
I
remember reading, or should I say "acting" out, many fairy
tales to my two sons when they were growing up, sometimes with help
from the boys, especially during the "Fe Fi Fo Fum's" or the
"better to eat you with, my dear" sections.
Fairy
tales, myths and fables are universal and timeless, and each child has
his or her favorite that they can recite and retell, adding all of the
sound effects and interpolations in exactly the right places. Such fascinating
and magical stories find their way from the home into the classroom,
and many of these stories have been used very effectively to teach our
students about character, plot, setting, motivation, creative problem
solving, critical thinking, and analysis.
These
simple yet entertaining pieces of literature can also be easily scripted
into readers theatre format, and subsequently used as an instructional
tool during a unit study or as a culminating activity in celebration
of what they have learned and are now able to share with the most appreciative
audience in the world...family and friends!
Readers
theatre and fairy tales are well matched. The use of narration and dialogue
make scripting fairly easy, and special sound effects or choral readings
can easily be included. When
scripting a fairy tale, take special care to use divided narration,
sharing the narrator's lines to compliment the character roles.
The
following bit of scripting will serve as an example for the ever popular
Brothers Grimm tale of"Rumpelstiltskin". It was scripted for
four readers, but could easily be expanded to seven, with smaller parts
assigned to more hesitant readers:
Reader
One: Narrator 1
Reader Two: Miller, Daughter, Servant
Reader Three: King, Rumpelstiltskin
Reader Four: Narrator 2
N1:
Once there was a poor miller who had
Miller:
a beautiful daughter.
N2:
On his way to town one day, the miller encountered
King:
the king.
N1:
Wanting to impress him, the miller said,
Miller:
"I have a daughter who knows the art of spinning straw
into gold."
N2:
Now, the king had a passion
King:
for gold,
N2:
and such an art intrigued him. So he
King:
ordered the miller
N2:
to send his daughter
King:
to the castle straightaway.
N1:
When the girl was brought before him,
N2:
the king led her to a room
Daughter:
that was filled with straw.
N2:
He gave her spools and a spinning wheel, and said,
King:
"You may spin all night, but if you have not spun this
straw into gold by morning, you will have to die."
N2:
With that, he locked the door,
N1:
and the girl was left inside,
Daughter:
alone.
N1:
There sat the poor miller's daughter, without the slightest
idea
Daughter:
how anyone could spin straw into gold.
N1:
For the life of her she did not know
Daughter:
what to do.
N1:
She grew more
Daughter:
and more frightened,
N1:
and then she began
Daughter:
to weep.
ALL:
Suddenly
N2:
the door sprang open and a tiny man stepped in.
Rump:
"Good evening, Mistress Miller,"
N2:
he said.
Rump:
"Why are you sobbing?"
.........and
so on! Readers theatre and fairy tales...just naturally go
together!
Next
article will focus on myths.
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