Deepening Comprehension With Action Strategies ─ Role Plays, Text-Structure Tableaux, Talking Statues, and Other Enactment Techniques That Engage Students With Text

Before reading, hand out lines of a poem and invite students to build an idea of what the poem will be about...invite two students to play good angel/bad angel for a book character...have students perform a vocabulary statue depicting the meaning of terms such as global warming or deforestation. You’ll find that these motivating ideas and many others energize students before, during, and after reading and can be done individually, or through pair work or groups. You’ll also discover that they deepen reading strategies such as activating prior knowledge, inferring, visualizing, making connections, and more. This updated and revised edition is aligned with Common Core State Standards and includes a DVD demonstrating action strategies at work in classrooms. For use with Grades 4 & up-.

Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, professor of English education at Boise State University and a middle and high school teacher for 15 years, has authored and co-authored two dozen professional books and resources, including Engaging Readers and Writers With Inquiry and Improving Comprehension With Think-Aloud Strategies. For You Gotta BE the Book, he earned the Promising Researcher Award from the National Council of Teachers of English.