Tag Archives: classroom plays

The Miracle of Public Education

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People like to talk about how there’s a Starbucks on every corner. Whether true or not, the Starbucks brand is impressive. In fact, there are about 16,000 Starbucks locations in the U.S. That’s really incredible!

Yet it’s totally junior varsity compared to America’s Public School System. While we’re all impressed by Starbucks, our School System has around 100,000 locations. One hundred thousand! That means we’re running six schools for every Starbucks. Now think about how much more challenging it is to run a school than a coffee franchise—let alone six schools—or how much more challenging it is to be a teacher than a barista.  

McDonald’s raves about how many burgers it’s served: “Billion and Billions” it says on its signs.  Well, on average, McD’s serves 6 1/2 million burgers per day. That’s an impressive number—unless you compare it to America’s Public School System. We teach 74 million students per day. Seventy-four million! That’s 11 kids for every burger sold. No matter how you pickle it, there’s no comparing frying up a burger to teaching eleven kids how to read, write, and calculate the surface area of a hamburger wafer. 

Yes, I know all these school districts and schools are “independent” entities, but so too is a Starbucks franchise. The fact is, given the enormous task of teaching, feeding, nurturing, and babysitting America’s kids, there is no corporation in the world that can compare with the American Public School System. None. Not even Amazon.

And yet, when surveyed, only 19% of Americans says our school system is doing a good job.  Wait. Stop the press. When those same people are asked about the school system in their own state, suddenly 44% say the schools in their own state are doing well. But hang on yet again! When those people are then asked about their local schools, 79% give them favorable grades. How can this be?

Setting aside media bias and political propaganda (there’s enough of that to cover every Big Mac ever made with a double portion of special sauce), it suggests that the closer one is to the action, the more they appreciate what’s going on. You see, we have a distant view of the school system as a whole, yet because own kids and grandkids go to the local school, we tend to be more aware and appreciative of all the hard work being done there.  At the local level, too, people tend to see the students and their families as accountable, not just the school itself, which leads us to the gist of this post. You see, there’s also research that shows the more involved one is as a parent, the better one’s child will do in school.

Well of course!

When parents read with their kids, check their homework, communicate regularly with the teachers, hold their children accountable, and validate report cards, kids do better.

When parents attend assemblies, chaperone trips, encourage their kids to participate, and insist that vacations be taken during actual vacation periods, kids do better.

Hands-on parenting benefits kids. Having done this gig for more than 30 years, I can attest to the validity of such research. 

Our schools are not without their problems, weaknesses, and failures. But our system of Public Education really is miraculous. Now, allow me to make a small connection to my specialty, reader’s theater.

One way to encourage parent involvement is to use plays. When given a play script to learn, your kids will be more likely to read at home, and their parents will be more likely to read with them. When you use plays, parents will want to be more involved, such as with set building and costuming.  And finally, when kids are going to be on stage, their parents are more likely to show up.

Encourage the parents of your students to be actively involved in the miracle of public school by producing a play. October is a great time to try one of my Gothic classics: The Monkey’s Paw, The Birth-mark, the Mad Scientist’s Daughter, and Tell-Tale Heart.

Happy directing!

Why Your Students Can’t Pay Attention

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When LeBron James drains a three-pointer, he gets more than a big chunk of change. He also gets a hit of endorphins. It’s this hit of hormones that makes him want to score again and again. I’m not a neurologist (nor even much of a brainiac), but I’ve read enough about neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin to understand a bit of the brain science behind motivation. What happens in Lebron’s brain is the same thing we all experience when something gives us pleasure or excitement. It’s especially profound in the developing brains of our students. It’s what motivates a kid to learn to read, to pass tests, to win at wall ball, to make friends, and . . . to level up in Fortnite.

Video games, it seems, are designed to stimulate endorphin production. (So too are the algorithms in social media.) It is what makes video games addictive. In a typical video game, the early levels are easy. A player experiences immediate success and therefore an immediate dopamine hit. As the player advances to higher levels, success is harder to come by, but the player sticks with it because their brain is seeking those endorphins. The problem is that getting endorphins in an artificial environment such as a video game is fun and easy, which means it highjacks a person’s motivation to pursue endorphins in the real world. It’s why your video game addict often lacks the work ethic to become a voracious reader, to earn straight A’s, or to drain three-pointers. Small Spaces may be a great book, but it just can’t compete with Roblox.  

Johann Hari spells all this out in his book, Stolen Focus. He’s compiled vast amounts of research to show how addiction to devices is undermining not just education, but society as a whole. It’s a great read—and it’s especially applicable to educators.

Hari contends that today’s kids are being raised by devices from the time they’re born. When our toddlers need attention, instead of actually parenting we merely hand them a tablet. Neither parent nor child learn to deal with whatever the actual problem is because the device serves as a pacifier.

Hari also contends that ADHD is over-diagnosed. Chronic sleep deprivation due to Internet Gaming Addiction (IGA) is the root cause of classroom hyperactivity and focus issues.  Gamers over-stimulate their brain in the evening hours and consequently can’t fall asleep. Rarely do they reach REM sleep. The chronic fatigue manifests itself just like ADHD, but the solution isn’t daily doses of Ritalin; it’s as simple (and as hard) as turning off devices two hours before bedtime.

We’ve all heard the ed gurus telling us for a while now that kids with laptops, tablets, or cell phones will accomplish whole new levels of academic success. The pandemic, though, exposed the many flaws of such digital thinking, yet today, despite plunging test scores, alarmingly low literacy rates, decreasing motivation, and increasing hyperactivity, we’re still subjecting our kids to online platforms–many of which look a lot like video games.

Maybe it’s time we put away all the devices and got back to some fundamentals such as cursive handwriting (it does all kinds of great stuff in the brain), holding actual books in our hands, counting back change, using measuring tape, microscopes, and beakers.

And performing plays.

You can check out Stolen Focus at most any bookseller or public library. (I’m not including a hot link because I want you to know I’m recommending the book solely on its merits, but here’s as honest a review as you’ll ever find.) You can also check out my plays—most of which were originally published by Scholastic—in my TpT store. Consider welcoming kids back to school with my Winnie-the-Pooh reader’s theater. I’ve taken five of Milne’s best stories and crafted them as one-act plays, each with just 4 or 5 actors. Try splitting your class into small groups and have each learn and perform an act during the first week of school! They’ll love it!

Or, I suppose you could instead just assign them some more time on an online reading app.

(Don’t do it! Use a play!)

Happy directing!

Your Juneteenth Playlist

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My most poignant play—and it’s perfect for celebrating Juneteenth! Based on actual slave narratives, Freedom for the First Time is historically-accurate, kid-friendly, and comes embedded with comprehension questions and historic photos. It’s the narrative of ten-year old Tyree, a slave during the time of the Civil War. Like many slaves, Tyree believes whatever her masters say. But when Tyree’s brother, Sweet Walter, arrives with a band of Union soldiers to tell her the war is over, she and her family experience their day of Jubilee, the day they know freedom for the first time. Pair it with Days of Jubilee, Patricia and Frederick McKissack’s exceptional non-fiction book about slavery and the Civil War. Click here to see the fantastic things the kids at the Baker Montessori School in Houston did with the script! It’s available on TpT and Etsy, and like all my plays, it includes performance rights. Be sure to also check out Box Brown’s Freedom Crate and Richard Wright & the Library Card. Happy directing!

Plays and Paired Texts for Black History Month

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Here are ten compelling paired texts with which to recognize black history month while meeting numerous Language Arts standards. All the plays are based on the given event–not it’s paired text (in most cases the play was published before the given book). That means each pairing represents distinctly unique points of view (Literature CCSS #6), making for livelier discussions and quality comparisons (CCSS Lit #7). And because these plays are based on real events, they’ll also satisfy CCSS Informational Text #6. Each includes a comprehension activity, too, assuring your students will satisfy numerous other standards as well. And because almost all my plays were originally commission by and published in Scholastic’s Storyworks and Scope magazines, they’ve been professionally vetted, making them the best reader’s theater available. Only six of the ten are shown here–just click on the image to preview or purchase on my Etsy or TeachersPayTeachers storefront. Also be sure to check out these recorded performances of “Martin’s Big Dream” and “Ruby Bridges: A Simple Act of Courage” by The Palace Youth Theater. Happy directing!

MLK Day and Black History Month Activities

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If you’re like me, you put a bow on the holidays and then breathed a sigh of relief as you headed home for the two week break. But here you are back in class and MLK Day is already upon you!  You have no time to lose when it comes to planning your MLK Day and Black History Month activities!  So, let’s get right to the point of this post: ReadAloudPlays.com specializes in Black History Month and MLK plays.

In 2021, despite all the Covid-related restrictions, the folks at the Palace Youth Theatre in New Hampshire selected a couple of my plays to enact for Black History Month. I’ve posted the video here so that you can take a look. Just click on the image. Whether or not these two plays inspire you to download any of my material, I hope you’ll still share the video with your students. Consider having them watch the production and then read the plays. Or, simply have them follow along with the script while viewing.

The two plays shown are Martin’s Big Dream, which reveals how incidents from King’s childhood inspired his work, and A Simple Act of Courage, which shares the role Ruby Bridges played in integrating America’s schools. They’re both available in my TpT and Etsy stores.

You’ll also find numerous other plays told from the perspective of Civil Right icons like Jackie Robinson, Claudette Colvin, and Sheyann Webb. One of the hallmarks of a quality historical play for kids is that the story is told through the eyes of a child witnessing the events firsthand. These plays all meet that standard. 

A favorite of mine is MLK’s Freedom March, which is told through the eyes of  eleven-year-old Lucy. Her grandmother is dying of cancer, her father is worried about losing his job, and her brother is fired up about The March for Jobs and Freedom, the iconic event where Dr. King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. It’s a powerful play with multidimensional characters backed by King’s awe-inspiring speech.

If you don’t know where else to start, download my free product, Tips for Teaching Marginalized Voices and Traumatic Events.  

Thank you for continuing Dr. King’s work, and happy directing!

A Special Pooh Event!

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Back in the days of the big three networks, a television special like Charlie Brown, Winnie-the-Pooh, or the Little Drummer Boy was a once-a-year event. I remember being mesmerized by those now-old Pooh specials of the 1960’s and 70’s. They introduced us to memorable stories such as Pooh and the Honey Tree and memorable characters such as Eeyore and Tigger. Though releasing my set of Pooh adaptations may not be the kind of event that’ll gather the family in front of the Zenith on a Sunday evening, I none-the-less think it’s still kind of special.

My adaptations include the five best stories from Milne’s 1926 work. I’ve packaged them as five individual “mini-plays.” Each play has just five or six cast members, which means they’re great for small groups. My fifth graders are having a blast with them, and I’m enjoying hearing their interpretations of Milne’s clearly-defined characters. In our case, each small group is staging two plays with the intent of gathering first and second grade kids “in front of the Zenith” some afternoon after winter break. I think your kids will love them too.

A.A. Milne published the original set of Pooh adventures way back in 1926, but even though they’re now in the Public Domain, recreating them as reader’s theater isn’t as straight-forward as it might seem. Disney, for example, still owns the copyright to everything post-1926. That includes Tigger, Pooh’s red shirt, and even the un-hyphenated version of Pooh’s name. Still, these five plays represent the best of Milne’s original work. They’re suitable for third grade and up (a strong group of second graders can probably handle them too), but they promote fluency in upper grades too. They come with comprehension activities, and they’re printed in my kid-friendly, easy-to-read format. Look for Pooh on my TeachersPayTeachers storefront.

Thank you for using Read Aloud Plays! Happy directing!

Plays: A Series of Good Times

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My colleague popped in my room the other day to share his experience using my Sleepy Hollow play. His hope is to stage a simple production for Halloween, but after the first reading, he very nearly punted. His class of Covid-delayed readers, he said, could barely get through the script. Still, rather than thinking the script is too difficult, he stuck with it. A second reading was better—especially after he’d reviewed a few key vocabulary words.  Then, after sharing segments from the 1949 Sleepy Hollow Disney cartoon, Ichabod and Mr. Toad, the class bought-in and were soon fighting over who’d get to be Knickerbocker, Brom Bones, and Gunpowder. Now they’re practicing independently, their enthusiasm lending itself to improved fluency.

I share this because this is the way read aloud plays work. The magic comes when scripts are read multiple times. Yes, they’ll slog through the first reading, but when they read it repetitively, their fluency improves (dare I say) dramatically. I’d go so far as to say we ought to be having our kids read everything twice: every play, every article, every chapter of every book.  As Narnia author C.S. Lewis once said, “If you haven’t read a book at least twice, you haven’t read it.” The thing about a play is that kids are willing to read it over and over again.

In researching prospective new plays to share this Christmas, I came across the work of Walter Ben Hare. Back in 1917 he wrote a book called The White Christmas and Other Merry Christmas Plays. His work is too dated to re-use, but the notes he included in the prologue are charming and spot-on.

“The director’s aim should be to establish a happy co-operation with the players that will make the whole production, rehearsals, dress rehearsals and final performance, a series of good times crowned by a happy, if not perfect, production,” says Hare. “The director should always strive to be cheerful and happy, ever ready to give advice and ever ready to ask for advice, even from the youngest players. Take them into your confidence. Discuss color schemes, costuming, property making, lighting and scenic effects with your actors.”

I like that! Producing a play should be fun. It’s not a time to be handing out letter grades, nor a time to channel your inner Kubrick. In fact, it doesn’t really matter if the play turns out to be a “perfect production,” as Ben Hare would have you aim. A “happy” performance is the greater goal!  

That doesn’t mean it’ll be easy. Your students will stumble. They’ll stutter. They’ll leave their scripts at home. But some tenacity and determination like that of my colleague will be worth it in the end. As Hare concludes, “The pleasure of the work and the pride in a production well done, will amply repay an ungrudging lavishment of time and labor.”

For a pleasurable production this Halloween, Veterans’ Day, or Christmas, start with a visit to my storefront at TpT or Etsy.. Most were originally published in Scholastic’s Storyworks magazine, so you know they’re of the highest quality.

Happy directing!

The Anatomy of a Play

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Like most of you, summer furlough is upon me, which for me means some time to find my mojo on a variety of writing projects. Having just finished a new Read Aloud Play based on the legend of The Pied Piper, I’m reflective about how much work went into it. Allow me to explain.

You might think it easy to churn out these plays, but writing can be quite laborious. Take my friend and Storyworks editor Lauren Tarshis, author of the I Survived series. She tells me how hard it often is to sit down and produce another disaster story. Play writing is no different. It’s serious work, especially since we’re both determined to tell a great story.

In the case of The Pied Piper, my first inclination was to tell the traditional folktale, but I learned something while watching episodes of the The Regular Show with my granddaughter: kids like silliness. The main characters on The Regular Show, which you’ll find on Disney+, include a talking, walking gumball machine, a raccoon, a bluejay, and what I think might by a cloud. They’re all a bunch of nitwit employees of “The Park.” Yes, the plain ol’ park. Much to my astonishment, it’s a great show with strong lessons.

Well, I’m at my best when I get a bit silly, when I think like an elementary kid. So after watching a few episodes (a bit of Jeff Goldblum didn’t hurt, either), I was able to craft a semi-twisted kind of absurd version of The Piper. The traditional story is still there, but there’s just enough silliness to make it extra fun for kids—and easier for me to write. After a couple days of germination, the story sprouted in just two days of writing. Compare that to my more hardcore titles, many of which took weeks of serious slogging.

The writing, though, is only a small portion of the task. Editing takes a few days. I’m guessing I’ve read through a script twenty to thirty times before I share it with you. I also force my poor wife or friends to give it a read, and during the school year, I test run it with my students. (Click here to see what my 5th graders did with the script.)

Meanwhile, I’m pulling images from different sources, verifying copyright and public domain status, building the cover and title banner on Illustrator, and double checking my research. Next begins the formatting. When I’m writing for Scholastic, I don’t need to worry about any of that, but when I’m packaging up a project for ReadAloudPlays.com, developing a pleasing format suitable for kids is really time consuming. It can also be frustrating when images, textboxes, and footers migrate from where I stick ‘em to some random spot three pages away!

There’s also the process of developing comprehension activities. I always try to include a bubble quiz because I think teachers like to be able to give a quick assessment just to keep kids accountable and to have something for the grade book (I’m not a proponent of grading the play performance itself—but that’s a topic for a different day).  I also try to include other activities when I can. In the case of the Piper, I spent a couple days creating a good bubble quiz and a nifty paired text reading activity. They don’t require any real prep for the classroom teacher, and they’re straight-forward enough for kids to figure out without much direction, but they represent quite a bit of labor on my part.

Even after all that’s done, there’s still the task of putting together the information pages and teacher notes, of combining them into a single PDF, of double checking the PDF for weirdness (like migrating images), and of creating a preview file. I just finished accomplishing all that…yet I’m still not done. There remains the process posting the product on TpT, Etsy and ReadAloudPlays.com (All those log-ins! All those Captchas!), and of promoting the darned thing with a nice little blog post like this one.

I hope you like it!  With any luck, there’ll be more to come.

Happy directing!

Trees, Bees, and Centipedes . . .

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The clocks have all sprung forward, the turkey vultures have returned, and the sprouts are beginning to pop. Spring has arrived! So tell that groundhog to make way for some fun plays celebrating the season, including my newest script, Nature Talks Back. It’s actually four coordinated skits designed to give younger students insight in to trees, bees, and centipedes. Its ecology and conservation themes include that trees communicate, that some perceived pests are considered beneficial insects, and that honeybees are super-important pollinators.  The stories center around three oddball forest trees named Luther, Otto, and Bill and their hysterical encounters with a host of pests.    

It’s aimed specifically at kids in upper 2nd through 4th grade, but it’s also suitable for grade 5 and up for reader’s theater, podcast, or stage— especially when performed for younger kids. (My fifth graders love it and are presently preparing a full production!)

Consider pairing Nature Talks Back with some of my other spring-oriented plays. Peter Rabbit is also aimed at younger students. Use it with 2nd and 3rd graders, or have older students perform it for primary-aged kids. Rikki Tikki Tavi, Kipling’s much-loved story about the heroic mongoose has some spring-time flair, a singing bird, and an important theme about courage. It too can be presented alongside How the Elephant Got Its Trunk, another classic Kipling tale from The Jungle Books.  And don’t forget that baseball season is upon us, so it’s a great time for my entertaining and socially important play about Jackie Robinson.

Happy directing!

Greatness Isn’t Born

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I don’t usually do reviews, but I just finished an awesome book called The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle (2009, Bantam). Greatness isn’t born, argues the author. It’s grown. Think about that for a minute and then apply it to your classroom.

Greatness isn’t born. It’s grown.

There are no “naturally gifted” kids. Your students didn’t inherit their spelling/math/reading deficiencies from a parent. In fact, Coyle shows that IQ and physical attributes are largely irrelevant.

And he proves it using brain science.

Now, I’ve written about neuroscience before. Brain research by Lev Vygtsky and other experts is the basis for using reader’s theater to build fluency. The repetitive, “slow reading” nature of practicing a play builds the neural pathways that make mastery possible. Coyle, though, takes it further, citing more contemporary research. I’m stoked because Coyle’s work not only justifies using reader’s theater, it also affirms the effectiveness of my Super Sentences writing program, which relies on targeted, mistake-focused practice. And Perfect Paragraphs, which has to do with being imitative. And my Fact Car Rally program, too!

The book is chock full of concepts important to learning. It explains why special education kids are often mistakenly perceived as having short-term memory disabilities. It reveals what’s behind vacation “brain drain,” and how speed-focused oral reading fluency leads to mediocrity, and why stuff like Harry Potter and Twilight can ignite an entire generation of writers.

It also honors great teachers. What we do can’t be delivered by an online platform, nor scripted in a textbook!

So, I encourage you to grab a copy of The Talent Code off Ebay. (A copy used is less than $10 and you’ll be able to write notes in it!) Despite being all about neurons, synapsis and myelin, it’s an engaging read. (It’s kind of gone viral within my school setting.) Plus, it’ll have a huge impact on your teaching.

And while we’re on the subject, consider building some slow-reading, mistake-focused readers with some deep practice using my read aloud play scripts! For Women’s History Month you might want to try Girl. Fighter. Hero! about “the female Paul Revere,” or The Secret Solider, which tells the story of Deborah Samson, America’s first female soldier. You could also try my original play about Sacagawea, or my story from the Montgomery Bus Boycott about Claudette Colvin.   

Happy directing!