Vote!
Inspired by materials from Treasures reading series
Erin K Hulse, Drama Resource Teacher, APS ARTS Center, hulse@aps.edu 880-8249 x 160
Readers’ Theatre
Appropriate Grade Levels: 3-5
Objectives: Students will
Read and interpret text
Construct meaning from a script
Collaborate to perform a readers’ theatre script
NM Common Core Content/ELA/Reading Standards:
Key Ideas and Details
1. Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific
textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.
2. Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting
details and ideas.
3. Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.
Craft and Structure
4. Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and
figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.
5. Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text
(e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole.
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
7. Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and
quantitatively, as well as in words.
8. Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, including the validity of the reasoning as
well as the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence.
NM Fine Arts/Drama/Theatre Standards Addressed:
Standard 1: Learn and develop the essential skills and meet technical demands unique to dance, music,
theatre/drama and visual arts.
K-5 Benchmark 1A: Use body and voice to portray character.
Standard 3: Integrate understanding of visual and performing arts by seeking connections and parallels
among arts disciplines as well as other content areas.
K-5 Benchmark 3B: Explore connections between the elements of drama and other content areas.
Standard 4: Demonstrate an understanding of the dynamics of the creative process.
K-5 Benchmark 4A: Collaborate to design, plan, rehearse and perform dramatizations.
NM Social Studies Standards:
Strand: Civics and Government
Content Standard III: Students understand the ideals, rights, and responsibilities of citizenship and
understand the content and history of the founding documents of the United States with particular emphasis
on the United States and New Mexico constitutions and how governments function at local, state, tribal, and
national levels.
K-4 Benchmark III- D: Understand rights and responsibilities of “good citizenship” as members of a family,
school and community.
5-8 Benchmark 3-A: demonstrate understanding of the structure, functions and powers of government (local,
state, tribal and national):
Materials:
 Copies of Your Vote Your Voice or Women and the Vote, scripts adapted from Treasures
 Chairs or other to indicate space for readers/performers.
 Character profile (optional—see attached)
Vocabulary: Dialogue, expression, gestures, constructive criticism
Procedure:
Anticipatory set—
Why do we need to vote?
Lesson—
 Review/present Readers’ Theatre. Discuss how RT is not like a play in that the actors hold their scripts
as they perform—but it IS like a play in that it gets rehearsed A LOT!
 Divide students into groups—sizes are determined by the number of readers for each script.
 Groups need to decide how to position themselves for a performance—will they all sit or stand in a
line/semi-circle? Will some sit and some stand? Will one person enter the scene and thus begin the
action?
 Allow time for groups to rehearse. Encourage them to used hand gestures, facial expressions, and to
consider the lines their “character” says as to how the line needs to be read.
 Groups perform for each other.
 Debrief—ask what performers did to help convey their message. Ask for any suggestions for how a
group or an actor could change his or her performance to better convey meaning.
Assessment: Discussion/debriefing, teacher observation
Modifications:
 Pair less confident readers with stronger readers for choral reading on some parts.
 If this is being performed, each student needs to create a character profile for his/her part.
Character Profile
Your name:
Date:
Give the information for your character with as much detail as you
can so we can get to know him/her very, very well.
Name:
Age:
Traits:
Home:
Family:
Wish/Goal/Motive:
Fear:
*Hope for the world:
Continue any of these on the back if needed!