Publication Date

12-2017

Date of Final Oral Examination (Defense)

11-6-2017

Type of Culminating Activity

Thesis

Degree Title

Master of Arts in Education, Literacy

Department

Literacy

Major Advisor

Katherine Wright, Ph.D.

Advisor

Margaret E. Chase, Ph.D

Advisor

A.J. Zenkert, Ed.D.

Abstract

Readers Theater is an old genre of Theater integrating oral interpretation and presentational Theater. The high interest of the scripts chosen for a Readers Theater production and the repetition of rehearsing text promotes fluency, expressiveness, and motivation. Readers Theater is one method that may support comprehension by developing students’ understanding of character. Very few Readers Theater studies measure comprehension. I set-up a study where nine fifth and sixth-grade students from a summer literacy program each embodied a character. I wanted to know if Readers Theater could help teach character comprehension. I created a comprehension assessment tool, called a Character Map, where students identified a character’s traits, objectives, passions, problem, evolution, a direct text reference, and an internal thought reference. In this four-week study, students increased their understanding of traits, problem, and metamorphous of the characters they portrayed. Not only did Readers Theater help increase character comprehension, it also led also to deeper comprehension of the story.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.18122/B2XD85

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