Story Acting
Story acting is usually the most exciting part of the cycle for children. Hearing their words come alive for their peers and having them celebrated is an excellent opportunity to build classroom culture and self-esteem in all learners. Teachers should remember that story acting is best started using familiar or favorite storybooks.
Establishing a routine around story acting is strongly recommended for acting success. When establishing a routine for coming to story acting, the teacher may want to have a special chime or signal that this meeting time will be for story acting. The teacher may choose to use some opening language after the special chime that reminds children of the differing expectations for story acting versus a regular meeting time. In the sample lessons below, the teacher uses language about “going to the theater” and reminds children of what good audience members do while they are in a theater.
Before beginning the story acting routine, teachers must set time aside to practice acting. For many students this may be their first time acting, and therefore they will benefit from some stage coaching by teachers. Children will need to practice being a variety of characters before actually taking the stage. Teachers will need to prompt children to listen carefully to who the character is, and think about what they know about that character. SEE recommends working with children to consider acting like a variety of animals, houses, trees, and the weather.
Additionally, prior to story acting teachers must work with children to develop rules and expectations for their safety during acting. Teachers may want to ask children to consider how it might look if two characters are “fighting” or there is a battle on stage. Play fighting specifically should be practiced prior to story acting to ensure that no one gets hurt. For more information about play fighting see the “Stories with Violence” section.
For story acting, the actors must have a stage area. SEE recommends that teachers create a section of their meeting area to be used as the stage. The simplest way to do this is to use a piece of masking tape on the meeting area rug to delineate between the ‘stage’ and the ‘audience.’ Once a stage has been established, SEE recommends children sit in a semicircle or circle around the stage so that they can easily watch and participate in the story as needed.
While reading the story aloud as the narrator, the teacher must gently and discreetly invite children to participate in the acting. When starting story acting for the day, it is advisable to begin inviting students if they want to participate by beginning at one end of the semicircle and progressing around until all acting roles have been filled for the stories being acted out that day. When the teacher is reading the story comes upon a character who has been underlined, the teacher should make eye contact with the next child whose turn it is to act and invite in a soft or whisper voice to come be the character (“Jayden, come be the snowman.”) The child would then stand up and join the actors on stage, or gently say “pass” and the teacher will move on to the next available child. In some classrooms, the teacher may have to go around the circle multiple times to have students participate as actors, or there may be students who do not receive an opportunity to act that day. This may upset children and is typical. Teachers should remind children that there will be many other opportunities to act throughout the week and year, and that the teacher will pick up where they left off the next day.
Key things for Story Acting:
- Establish a routine to open story telling.
- Create an area for a stage and for the audience.
- Invite children to participate in a quiet and gentle voice.
- Phrase the invitation as, “please come be the…” rather than, “would you like to be the…”
- Allow children to “pass.”
- Encourage celebration of all children’s stories.
- Say “the end” when the story is over. Have actors bow and the audience applaud.
- Always thank the author for their story.
To begin Story Acting, the teacher should invite the children to the meeting rug and inform them that they will be doing story acting. The teacher should cue the children to move to the ‘audience’ portion of the meeting area where children are sitting around the stage in a single row. A sample narrative for beginning story acting is as follows:
“Now we’re going to go to the theater/stage.
Who can remind me what the audience does at the theater?
The audience is quiet and respectful of the actors, can choose to act as the specific character, or may pass. The audience must applaud the actors and author at the end of the show.
Today we’re going to read Jose, Mary, and Gemini’s stories.
We’ll start with Jose’s story. Jose’s story is called Going to Stop and Shop.
(In a whisper) Jose please come up to begin the story.
(Reading) One time Jose and his mom (in a whisper: Julie would you come up and be mom? No, ok, Jason would you come up and be mom? Great) went to Stop and Shop. They bought apples, mangos and chicken. Then they walked home. The end.”
Applause. The teacher thanks Jose for his story then moves on to Mary and Gemini’s stories.