Bringing Literature to Life With Drama and Art
“Our journey begins in a town called the City of Despair. There is a man named Pilgrim who is just beginning a great journey. He is traveling to the Celestial City, or heaven. Let’s travel with him.”
Thus begins the student-written script for Pilgrim’s Progress.
Mixing literature with art and drama can be a powerful way for students to remember and apply both the content and underlying meaning of what they have read. Not only reading choices for older students–such as Pilgrim’s Progress–but middle-grade books such as Tom Sawyer work well for extended projects. Below are ideas for the literature teacher to incorporate in the middle or high school classroom.
Write and act a script for a book.
Some of my favorite times from teaching high school British literature came with acting Pilgrim’s Progress for younger students. The Brit lit students read part of the book. The class then divided into groups, and each took one scene to lead through the entire story. Each group wrote a script for their scene, and we put the scripts together (this was the only section that required more work from the teacher because I had to “smooth out” the writing to make it flow). The students then each took a character (or two) to act out. They made and brought in props. We set up each scene around the school, and the younger students toured the scenes in groups while the Brit lit students acted their parts at each scene location.
So here’s how it worked: Christian met each group of students at the beginning scene, holding a Bible and carrying a burden. He joined with other characters like Evangelist and Faithful and led the touring students through the City of Destruction, to the Cross and empty tomb (where his burden fell off), through Vanity Fair and other scenes, eventually arriving at the Celestial City. At each location, other students acted the script for that part, including things like slogging through a kiddie pool full of mud for the Slough of Despair and effects such as bright lights and angelic music at the Celestial City. We did include some figures in black who dragged Ignorance away to hell; as a result, we did not let the youngest students in the school go through the tour to avoid frightening them. Both the actors and the younger students not only enjoyed the acting but also experienced a significant spiritual event.
A similar project can be performed for other books. With eighth grade, the students re-wrote the portion of Tom Sawyer with Tom and Becky in the cave. They designed backgrounds on butcher paper and fastened them to upright cafeteria tables. They acted the scenes with few props in front of the standing cafeteria table settings, with stagehands moving the tables as the scene changed.
Rewrite a book as a children’s book.
Being in a multi-grade school allows for interaction between older and younger students. Older students can re-tell and illustrate a book into a picture book form and then read it to younger students.
Make a class book.
The teacher divides a book or play into sections, and each student can summarize and illustrate a section on one page. The pages are then compiled into a class book.
Design a scrapbook page.
This was a project we completed when studying Mark Twain, but it could work for any author. The student includes pictures, artwork, and writing, using scrapbook materials (or an online scrapbooking program) to develop a page that represents the author’s life.
Create a collage.
This art project works well to match with a poem. The teacher can print the poem, which the student cuts out and glues to the background paper. Then the student cuts out correlating pictures from magazines and glues them onto the background paper, completely filling it.
