A New Play for MLK Day

Celebrate Martin Luther King’s legacy and teach his core values with any of a number of plays available on my storefront at TpT. “Martin’s Big Dream,” which is about MLK’s childhood, is one of the most highly-regarded plays ever to appear in Scholastic’s Storyworks magazine. “In the Jailhouse” offers a unique perspective on the events in Montgomery, “Gonna Let it Shine” covers the Selma march, and “We Shall Overcome”—my most popular civil rights play—depicts the Birmingham Children’s Crusade. But allow me to add a new one to the fold. Though not specifically about MLK, “A Simple Act of Courage” will give your students unique insights into everything Dr. King stood for.

Ruby Bridges was headline news in 1960 as she naively trudged into the all-white William Frantz School. Her compelling story, that of a first grader—a mere first grader!—integrating New Orleans Public Schools is indelible. Famed American author John Steinbeck wrote about it. Norman Rockwell painted it. And Ruby herself, nearly forty years later, revisited it in her stunning book, Through My Eyes. Ruby’s book is likely in your school library if not on your classroom bookshelf. By pairing it with this lovely reader’s theater script, you’ll have MLK curriculum that’ll stay with your students for years to come.

All of my MLK plays are emotional retellings based on carefully-researched real events. Your students will enjoy enacting them on stage or simply reading them in class, and the comprehension activities and support material will ensure your kids will meet the standards, too.

Happy directing!

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Great Reader’s Theater for Back to School

Before you crack those text books or assign that homework reading, how about blasting away all that summer slog with some kid-friendly reader’s theater? Because nearly all my titles were originally published in Scholastic classroom magazines, they’ve been designed to meet the latest standards. Here’s a baker’s dozen of timely titles to get your kids up and interacting right from the start:

Plays About Kids in Poverty

The Library Card tells the true story of a sharecropper’s child who overcomes poverty and racism on his way to becoming the internationally-acclaimed author, Richard Wright. The Newsies shares the tale of immigrant street children who survive by selling newspapers during the great depression. When the big publishers stick it to them, the kids go on strike. This one’s also based on real events and the subject of a Disney musical of the same name. Stolen Childhoods shares the work of depression-era photographer Lewis Hine’s crusade to end child labor. Based on real events, the story follows a trio of fictional kids who bide their time working in the textile mills rather than going to school. These are dramatic, heart-wrenching stories your kids will love.

Just for Fun Plays

Each of these plays has a distinct academic theme and literary focus, but the main reason for enacting them is pure get-up-and go amusement. In Cyclops, kids get to play Greek soldiers who get eaten one by one, the heroic Odysseus, and of course the one-eyed beast himself. Blood and guts for sure, but a ton of humor as well.  The Tale of Peter Rabbit is also a carrot patch full of silliness. Let your older students adapt the script to their liking and then enact it for the littl’uns down the hall! Finally, Penelope Ann Poe’s Amazing Cell Phone is a modernized version of Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” only the old man is the main character’s best friend and the beating heart is a buzzing flip phone.

Plays About Racism

Regardless of one’s political persuasion, there’s no questioning that issues about racism have recently exploded. Open constructive dialogue about it by reading How Jackie Saved the World, which shows how Jackie Robinson overcame racism to change the landscape of American sports. Sitting Down for Dr. King looks at the Greensboro Lunch Counter Sit-ins from the perspective of a ten year old white boy. When the sit-ins interfere with David’s celebration, he’s faced with a tough decision. The Girl Who Got Arrested shows what it was like to be a black child in the South during the mid-20th Century. Long before Rosa Parks, teenager Claudette Colvin was dragged off a bus, beaten, and jailed for refusing to give up her seat on a city bus. Powerful stuff.

Plays About the American Revolution

Many intermediate-grade text books start the year focused on the American Revolution. You can get your kids better engaged by jump-starting your unit with some reader’s theater. Two Plays from the American Revolution is a two-for-one deal that includes “Eagles Over the Battlefield,” a nifty skit in which Jefferson and Franklin argue about the adoption of the eagle, and “A Bell for the Statehouse” provides the real history behind that infamous crack in the Liberty Bell. Betsy Ross: Fact or Fiction lets your kiddos sleuth out the facts about the creation of the Stars & Stripes. Lastly, Secret Soldier shares the compelling real story of America’s first female soldier. No one knew it at the time because she fought the war disguised as a man. After doing these plays, kids will be chomping at the bit to read those textbook stories about Tories and minutemen.

Plenty More Where Those Came From

That’s right, I have a ton of other professionally-published read aloud plays for the elementary and middle school classroom. Take some time to explore my collection at ReadAloudPlays.com or at my storefront on TeachersPayTeachers, and be sure to use RT all year long. Thanks, and Happy Directing!