Barry Lane "After the End" Chapter 6 Response

In chapter six on page 92, Lane gives a lot of great activities and ideas for bringing characters to life. I think the fourth bullet down would be really fun to try. He suggests that you have your students adapt a story you are reading to a screen play and then map out the story. After you have the main points mapped out you can have the students draw pictures of the scenes.

This last month I took three classes from the Nixon Institute here at the U of I, two classes I took would really help me with this activity; one class was teaching the graphic novel and the other class was drama: from the page to the stage. I could see how turning a novel into a graphic novel would be really fun for the kids (maybe you could read a graphic novel in class before this assignment and teach them how to create graphic novels). Secondly you could act out the scenes that you draw. I learned all different kinds of fun activities to make the drama come from the page to the stage (actually having the kids act out the scenes).

I’m excited to try this! Have any of you tried anything like these activities? What has or hasn’t worked for you?