Teaching Music History with Readers’ Theater

Think back to your own elementary school experience. You may vaguely remember reading a short play in ELA or acting out a historical scene during a social studies unit. Everyone was assigned a part, lines were rehearsed, and then the scene began! There was a positive buzz in the air as the first character began speaking. This tactic for developing reading fluency is known as readers’ theater, and every general music teacher should be familiar with it.

Readers’ theater is a strategy for developing reading fluency and public speaking skills. Often used in elementary and middle school English and history classes, students build oral fluency, develop confidence as independent readers, and learn to read aloud with expression by using the full range of their speaking voice, facial expressions, and physical gestures. All of this takes place within a collaborative full class setting that encourages interacting and cooperating with others.

Teaching Strategies

This device can easily be applied to the general music classroom. Rather than simply describing significant events in music history to your students, bring them to life using readers’ theater. The only requirement is a well-written script that is at the reading level of your students. When in doubt, check with a classroom or ELA teacher to make sure the script you’ve chosen isn’t beyond the reach of your students. Then assign parts, give everyone a few minutes to practice, and then read the lines off the page.

Students should be encouraged to be funny, try out accents, and generally “act out,” so long as it is respectful and serves the purpose of making the reading memorable to the rest of the class! You might help your class loosen up and draw reluctant readers out of their shells by “setting the stage” in your classroom: play background music, add a few optional props, etc. After the play is finished and the laughter subsides, segue into a follow-up discussion about the social, historical, and cultural implications of the event that they just learned about.

Programming

In a “regular” classroom, readers’ theater is used simply as an educational tool. But as a music teacher with regular performances during the year, you might also consider putting readers’ theater scripts to use for a more formal presentation, such as an “informance” (in which parents are invited to visit your classroom and observe a typical class in action), a school assembly, or an evening performance for parents.

Consider putting together a presentation of several scripts from across history that share a common theme. For instance, a program on composers might include Hildegard von Bingen writing the first musical drama, Camille Saint-Saëns composing the first film score, and Rodgers and Hammerstein writing the musical Oklahoma! An evening exploring American popular music could feature Louis Armstrong recording the Hot Five and Hot Seven sessions, Chuck Berry releasing “Maybellene,” and DJ Kool Herc giving rise to hip-hop in the Bronx. All of these historical events are included in The Actor’s Account of Famous (and Not-So-Famous) Musical Moments , a collection of readers’ theater scripts about significant events in music history.

Making Connections

I selected a wide variety of historical events for inclusion in this book, including Western classical music, instrument development, sound technology, and American popular music. This was done in an effort to broaden the lens through which musical concepts are presented in the general music classroom and make connections with other content areas and historical events.

In addition to being an important part of my own philosophy of music education, this view is supported by the connection standards of the National Core Arts Standards. Students are asked to place artistic ideas and work within their proper external context to deepen understanding. Why is a particular style of music worth studying? How does music help us make sense of our own history? An experiential learning activity such as readers’ theater can help answer these essential questions as students make connections between abstract styles of music and the time and place in which it first came to be.