ABSTRACT
Book Title – Drama and Reading for Meaning Ages 4–11: A Practical Book of Ideas for Primary Teachers
Chapter Author – Larraine S Harrison
Chapter Number & Title – Chapter 7, EXPLORING CHARACTERS
This chapter suggests how variations on some of the most well-known drama strategies such as hot-seating and role-on-the-wall can help children aged 7–11 to explore characters, both real and imagined, with added links to information texts. Most of the activities are designed to take place in a classroom to complement ongoing work on reading for meaning. Links to reading for meaning include exploring characters’ thoughts, feelings, problems, motives and intentions; relationships between characters; comparing characters within and across books; authorial intent and viewpoint; fact and opinion; predictions; different perspectives; empathy; inference; appropriate questioning; engaging with fiction and information texts; conversations about books; forming and justifying opinions about texts. Activities include: role-on-the-wall; variations on hot-seating; the character circle; spotlighting/overheard conversations, and the line-up.
