Ashlynn Young

EDU 342
Dr. Aiken
April 25, 2022
Lit Appreciation Project.
For my literature appreciation project, I decided to engage my students in a readers
theatre. If I’m being honest, there was no great reasoning or process that went into why I
choose this. I was just talking about some different options with my cooperating teacher and
we both thought it would be fun and it was something we could make work with the schedule
the classroom had. Below you will find a brief summary of each play:

Why mosquitoes buzz in people’s ears: This African folk tale takes place in the jungle. One day
mosquito is bothering iguana and python hears iguana calling someone a “pest”. Before you
know it there is a chain reaction of animals making assumptions before they have all the
information and chaos overtakes their jungle community. How is this problem resolved? Kong
lion sentences mosquito to only make buzzing sounds until people stop calling him a pest.

This play was performed by the more advanced readers in the class.

Androcles and the Lion: This is an Aesop’s fable about friendship. One day in ancient Rome,
Androcles, a runaway slave, helps lion by removing a thorn from his paw and the two become
fast friends. Eventually the soldiers find and arrest Androcles and throw him in the arena to
fight a lion! But as fate would have it, the lion he is supposed to fight is his friend that he
helped! The lion repays Androcles’ kindness by sparing his life.

This play was performed by the on level readers in the class.

The Tricky Garden: One day bear refuses to share his berries with his friend fox. So what does
fox do? Propose a shared garden where he keeps the roots and bear keeps the stems. So fox
plants carrots! We follow this through a series of veggies that includes celery and lettuce.
Finally agree that if they share, then everyone gets the delicious food!

This was performed by the below level readers in the class.

The schedule for the readers theatre went like this.

Tuesday April 5th: Each group spent one rotation of their daily 3 time with me going through
their play for the first time. I talked to them that we do this to make us better readers told them
to make either a sign or a puppet for their character over the next few days.

Wednesday April 6th: Each group spent one of their daily 3 rotations going through the play with
me again.
Thursday April 7th: Rather than have daily 3 time, each group performed their play for the rest
of the class.

In the end, while the skits (which I will note I participated in also) were kind of “cringy” I think
all-in-all it went really well. First of all, the kids were very engaged and had a lot of fun. Every
day of the process I would have several asking me “are we doing our play today?” They also had
a lot of fun making their puppets. I even had a few asking me if we could do it again in the days
that followed.
 How I met pre-service teaching standards.
Standard: Uses an understanding of individual and group motivation and behavior to create a
learning environment that encourages positive social interaction, active engagement in
learning, and self-motivation.

I would say that in all honesty I can’t pinpoint one specific thing I did in this assignment
to meet this standard. I feel like I achieved this by keeping them motivated through maintaining
a happy, fun and positive atmosphere. I also made sure that there was no pressure and
competition and that everyone felt safe and comfortable. I also kept them motivated by
incorporating things like the signs and puppets.
 Philosophy connections
1. The first educational principle I can connect this activity to is “ Let them work together.
Be relational!” This relates to the Christian principle that we are all brothers and sisters
in Christ. In the Bible we are called to worship and dwell together in brotherhood and
community. My activity relates to this because they were working collaboratively in
groups.

2. The next principle I can connect this too is “Keep it active and interesting.” This is
reflective of a Christian worldview because Jesus himself made his parable engaging and
relatable to those who were listening. I achieved this through me activity because is was
a very hands on activity. They had to create things and perform in a show.

3. The third and final principle I can connect this to is “Keep it in the right developmental
level.” Much like my previous point, this is reflective of a Christian worldview because
Jesus recognized the various gifts and abilities of his listeners and took this into account
in his sermons. He used metaphors and examples they would understand. I achieved
this through my lesson by choosing scripts that weren’t too advanced for them.
Furthermore with the help oof my cooperating teacher, they were assigned roles that
were appropriate for their reading level.