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How to Use Short Stories for Readers Theater

Educators and written word enthusiasts use the Readers Theater format as another way to learn about and enjoy books, plays and especially short stories. Readers Theater demands little from participants: the contributors sit together around a table or on stools and read from scripts that someone, usually an educator or other leader, adapted from a story, book or play. No special lights or props are used, and the "players" come as they are. You can adapt virtually any short story for Readers Theater, although dialogue-heavy tales tend to translate better into the Readers Theater format.

Things You'll Need

  • Short story
  • Notebook (optional)
  • Computer with word processing software
  • Printer loaded with ink and paper
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Instructions

    • 1

      Read through your short story. Write down a list of important themes, characters, plot points, setting elements and symbols in the story. Use a notebook and pen for this, or type your ideas directly into your word processing program. Read the story again. Draw a line through passages that are only descriptive and do not tell the reader anything about the important story elements you just listed.

    • 2

      Write down passages that are important but aren't quite translating to a script format. For example, for a long descriptive passage of highly symbolic value, you could turn the passage into a sort of internal dialogue for one of the characters, and that character could be thinking aloud about, or remembering, whatever the passage described. If you find a narrative passage that you can't lose, assign it to a "narrator" character.

    • 3

      Run a line through non-essential phrases in long soliloquies. Read aloud through all the work you've done on the story, and make sure it still makes sense and mostly reads the way it did before; it should only feel condensed and more dialogue-heavy, but not completely changed.

    • 4

      Type your new script into your word processing document. Print out copies of the script you adapted. Make enough copies for every participant to have one from which to read.

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