Simple and Effective Activities from the Performing Arts to Enliven Literacy

Week 4:  Character

A Character Meet n’ Greet, and Stepping into their Shoes

Characters are truly the beating heart of any story, and the more connected a young person feels to characters in books, the more invested they will be in reading them. Moreover, to the extent that young readers learn to “look out through a character’s eyes,” they strengthen the foundation for such extraordinarily valuable capacities as empathy and perspective taking. This fun drama game and engaging storytelling activity will help participants connect with characters and their perspectives… from the inside out.

Week 3:  Setting

The Setting Switcheroo

The settings of a book are one of its core elements, and this drama game is a fun way to explore the power that they exert on their story. Through the game, we get to see just what happens to a scene when we shift its setting in zany ways!

Week 2:  Feeling

An Imaginative Walk-About and a Bit of Gibberish

To the extent that we live our lives fully, we do so through access to our feelings and our bodies. Similarly, to the extent that we can involve our hearts and our bodies in a story, we can “live” the story more fully and connect to it on a deep—and very real—level.  So let’s dive deeper into any story with these high-energy drama games that activate bodies and hearts through an imaginative walk-about and some good old-fashioned gibberish.

Week 1:  Plot

Body-Sculpt that Scene!  Bringing Striking Story Moments to Life

This activity will help young people take vivid moments from a story’s plot and bring them to life in a fun, interactive, and embodied way. In short, one person “sculpts” another person into a position that captures a striking moment of their choosing from something they’ve read or are reading.  This allows a story to deepen its roots in participants’ minds and memories, so that it can live on within them more fully— and continue bearing fruit for a long time to come.

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