Curriculum-Based Readers Theatre Scripts: Social Studies

Here are 25 short reproducible readers theatre scripts on Social Studies topics that students (elementary through high school) study. This unique style of readers theatre draws its material from curriculum content.

Curriculum-Based Readers Theatre (CBRT) scripts are specifically written so that a whole class can participate. All of the scripts (or script sections on broad topics) are short in length (1-2 pages) and contain many lines written for group unison speaking. Each script’s stage directions encourage students to create sound effects and gestures that add imaginative and kinesthetic components to its delivery.

The topics scripted in this volume are:

• U.S HISTORY SCRIPTS:

--The American Revolution

--The Four Movements of Change in American History

--The Labor Movement

--The Health and Safety Movement

--The Civil Rights Movement

--The Women’s Movement

--The Civil Rights Act

--Famous African Americans

--Eastern Woodlands Native Americans

--Historic Philadelphia

--Pioneers Moving West

--The Thirteen Original Colonies

--Representation in Congress

--How a Bill Becomes a Law

• WORLD HISTORY SCRIPTS:

--Mesopotamia

--The Nile River

--Renaissance Celebrities

--Ponce de Leon

• GEOGRAPHY SCRIPT:

--Latitude and Longitude Lines

Students overwhelmingly love to take parts in script readings. Even if the script is about something like molecules (and especially if it contains humor and invites their creative input), students participate willingly. Teachers whose students rehearse and perform scripts about Social Studies curriculum topics like bills, laws, acts, and movements report great educational results.

In an educational climate in which it is increasingly difficult to make time for experiences like the class play, Curriculum-Based Readers Theatre is a manageable option. Whole classes can work together on speaking skills and dramatic deliveries to rehearse and perform a short script that also just happens to reinforce Social Studies facts and ideas that students are supposed to know.

Rosalind Flynn has been presenting professional development workshops for teachers in collaboration with The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts since 1994. Her focus is the educational uses of drama as a learning method.

She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Maryland. At The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, Dr. Flynn is the head of the Master of Arts in Theatre Education (MATE) degree program.

She is the author of two books on the educational uses of drama:

Dramatizing the Content With Curriculum-Based Readers Theatre

A Dramatic Approach to Reading Comprehension co-authored with Lenore Blank Kelner

Information about the teacher workshops she presents based on the content of these two books can be found at her web site:

www.rosalindflynn.com

Rosalind also delivers her Curriculum-Based Readers Theatre workshop for teachers online. Using slides and video, Rosalind conducts teacher workshops that feature active participation and opportunities to ask questions and influence the instruction. Visit her website to learn more.

Her 20 articles on educational drama have been published in Dramatics, Youth Theatre Journal, Language Arts, English Journal, Teaching Artist Journal, The Reading Teacher, and Teaching Theatre. She also has three plays published—“The Odyssey, Oedipus and Others, or Greek Story Theatre” with co-playwright Stacey Coates (Playscripts, Inc.), “The School for Parents” (Boston Public Schools), "Juliets" (Heurer Publishing).

Since 1994, she has conducted workshops for students, teachers, and artists—in person and online—from 43 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Shanghai, China.