Day 21: This is a Moose

October 19, 2015

A few weeks ago at the end of the school day my co-op did a read aloud for the class of the book This is a Moose by Richard T. Morris. When we read the book I had mixed feelings about it. The plot was weak, and overall the book was hard to follow. However, the students loved it. Ever since then they have been quoting the book and requesting it to be read again. Today two of the girls in the class pulled the book from the class library and were reading it aloud together. They were taking turns reading the different characters' parts. My co-op and I both had the same idea at the same time, we should turn the book into a play and the students can act it out. I spent a good portion of the morning typing up the book into script from, finding clip art animals to attach to paper headbands to identify each character and highlighting lines on each script. We didn't tell the students the new plan for the afternoon but we were anxious all day to introduce our idea to the class.

After math concluded we shared what was about to happen next (the play) and the students were ecstatic. We assigned each student a character (see ** below) and presented them with their own script and fitted their character headband. This was the first time the class has read something in script form. We formed a circle on the carpet and read through the lines about 3 times to get the students used to following along so they know when it is their turn to read without being prompted. After the line reading was going smoothly we stood the class up and had them began adding "acting" and movements into the play. The first run through was rough but overall the students were really enjoying the concept. When the students were lined up and leaving for the day they were already asking if they would get to practice tomorrow. I can't wait to see their final result!

**As I was typing out the lines and pre-assigning roles to students I realized how easily and beneficially you can differentiate through this type of activity or similar reader's theater activities. I picked strong readers for roles with more and longer lines. I chose roles with repetitive style lines for students  that "robot" read. Roles with lines that had fewer words per sentence were great for our lower level readers. It is so common for students to be broken apart into leveled reading groups. This is a great way to have mixed ability reading. You don't have to pick a text that will leave half the class frustrated and the other half bored. After seeing how much the class is enjoying this activity I'd like to find ways to implement similar activities throughout the year.