Reader's Theater

We tried out a Reader's Theater approach with the journal Brokenburn. First we assigned small groups excerpts from the journal. We chose our excerpts so we would progress through the writer's life as we read while at the same time highlighting key themes such as attitudes toward slavery and the civilian experience in war. Each excerpt was paired with a primary source:

Brokenburn Excerpt	Primary Source
p. 86	excerpt from Solomon Northup
p. 145-146	Brokenburn 1860 Slave Schedule from Ancestry.com
p. 172-173	From Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs (1886) Chapter XXX: The Campaign Against Vicksburg; Employing the Freedmen [November-December 1862]
p. 190	Brokenburn 1860 Census
p. 218-219	Letter from Milliken's Bend
p. 339-340	1880 Census

The instructions were simple--read through the excerpt, analyze the primary source, and come up with a very short reading that synthesizes the documents.  We had some insightful results!