Reader's Theater

Whew! Where has the time gone?? It's already almost MID-MARKING PERIOD! I'm having so much fun with my kiddos this year. Every year that I teach using TPR, TPRS, and CI, I find new, exciting activities for my students. I update how I did things in the past and add or subtract as necessary. So far the best part of the year is that I FINALLY have a solid foundation of the curriculum, so I'm not reinventing the wheel each and every evening as a I plan. I can finally pull activities and use the rest of my (spare!) time to create new things.

One thing I decided to try this year was to do a Reader's Theater with only part of a text. I'm so used to having actors for the entire story, but on this particular day, I just didn't see the purpose for the first paragraph of the story.

I was teaching the first story "Cerberus" from the Cambridge Latin Series Stage 1 book.  I had already told two TPRS stories using TPR vocabulary and vocabulary from the Circling with Balls, so the students were familiar with appropriate story behavior. I read and circled the first paragraph to the students to set up the Reader's Theater. I circled heavily to ensure comprehension. Then, I put 4 carpet squares on the ground with a plate of fake food on top to serve as our table (mensa in Latin). I "hired" two gregarious students to act as the dog (canis) and the cook (coquus). The actors and audience had a ball. I circled what the actors were doing and directed the actors. On this day, I was missing about 7 students due to a class meeting, so I had the actors reprise their roles the next day. This was great because the majority of the class enjoyed a fun repetition, while the students who had missed were able to understand the story.

I really enjoyed doing the Reader's Theater with only about 8 sentences because it held the students' and actors' attention. Too often the actors get bored with background information or the audience spends too much time waiting for action. This paragraph was action-packed and perfect for a Reader's Theater. Total time, including set-up: 15 minutes. After the acting session, I again summarized for the students and finally, we read the paragraph in the book. The students were pleased by how easy it was!! Here are some pictures of my two awesome actors:

New School Year

     After a very busy summer during which I didn't do much actual schoolwork (even though I thought about it a lot), I feel refreshed and ready to roll. I attended a meeting Friday afternoon with my dear colleague, Cynthia Hitz, in Bryn Mawr, PA, organized by Carol Hill, Lori Belinksy, Anny Ewing, and La for the Tri-State TPRS/TCI Teachers Peer Network.  
     This was an awesome jump-start to my school year because it reminded me of how exciting those first few weeks of newness are. Since beginning my TPRS/CI journey, the first month of school is always my favorite. I start with Ben Slavic's circling with balls activity and just let the language flow. 
     For French I and Latin I, I plan to explicitly teach the students what I want them to do, and as Carol Hill put it, "Norm the class". This is the fourth year I've taught using the TPRS/CI strategy and I usually wait to teach them how to act until we are in the moment.  This leads to frustration later in the semester when I still have students who don't respond to my directions and questions, still blurt out in English, still don't sit with their heads up and eyes up. So from day one, I plan to teach them and tell them what I want from them every day. In both level I classes, I plan to start with a mini-story introducing "She has" and "She wants" just to get students into the groove of what a usual TPRS class will look like. From there I will move into circling with balls and toss in some TPR to get them out of their seats.
     For French III, I plan to review expected behaviors before moving into CI with student-provided pictures of summer activities.  These are students who came directly from French II in the spring, so I know them well. Last year's French II class was the best of my career, so I am eager to talk to them about their summer activities. 
     By this time tomorrow I will be one hour away from completing my 16th first day of school (well...34th if you count my own schooling--haha). I'm ready and excited to meet this year's students. Hope you are too!