Anansi: Building Fluency through Reader’s Theater

Act out the story of Anansi, a clever spider who completed a series of difficult tasks to win the Box of Stories, ensuring that everyone had the right to make and tell stories. Two spiders, a sky god, a fair, and a leopard are all a part of this story in the African jungle. This exciting tale of West African folklore teaches children about the cross-cultural need for storytelling. The roles in this script are written at different reading levels. This feature allows teachers to easily implement differentiation and English language learner strategies into instruction and assign specific roles to students in a way that accommodates individual reading skills. By using differentiation strategies, teachers can get all students involved and engaged in the same activity, whether they are struggling or proficient readers. Everyone can feel successful and can enjoy improving their fluency through performance! While performing this story with others, students can also practice interacting cooperatively and using expressive voices and gestures. With an accompanying poem and song for additional fluency practice, this script is a dynamic resource for your third and fourth graders. This colorful, leveled script is sure to get all students participating and confidently practicing fluency in a unique way.