First of all I have to say that the location of the lesson was in the gym instead of in a regular classroom and what we were going to do there was more related with a theatre or body expression class than with a literature lesson. At the beginning we all were a little bit shy and afraid of doing what Raquel asked but little by little we were more relaxed.

Although the lesson was different and I felt a bit confusing it was really funny, enjoyable and original. We all participated in a very active way being volunteers or being a part of a performance, and I thought…why not using this with primary students to develop literature? It may seem crazy or difficult to carry it out but not impossible, besides it has a lot of adaptations for everything we want to teach.

So what are the advantages of using theater in school?

-It develops children imagination, creativity and the different ways of expression, not only language using all the senses.

-It gives advantages to the relationships between peers and the teacher.

-Children assimilate better the concepts and knowledge if they have to represent any idea of a subject.

-Doing theater in the class help students to talk in front of an audience, being more self-confident, to get over shyness and to express their ideas and feelings.

-It reinforces the academic task as language, reading and literature through theater plays and roles.

-Using theater in the classroom introduce children into art and history.

Some of these ideas are from a very interesting blog I found called Tiching Blog and I recommend you to take it a look. Here is the link http://blog.tiching.com/el-teatro-una-herramienta-mas-en-el-aula/

In my opinion we should use more theatre in class and body language because it has a lot of advantage we can use in many different ways. It was very nice to do all those activities and think how we could adapt them to a literature class. I enjoyed so much the lesson, the hours flied and I learnt a lot.

We were divided into six groups around the corridors of the principal building. Each group was decorated in a different scenario of Aladdin’s movie. Like the market, the Cave of Wonders, the dessert, the palace… if you were walking you could see some Aladdin, Jasmines, tigers, Jaffars or Genies running with flying carpets, magic lamps and all kind of things from the Arabian culture.

When the children came to my group scenario, called “The Secrets of Arabia”, they had to stay in front of the classroom door, touch the magic lamp and wait until the Genie comes and he give them 3 wishes. The Genie gave them money to buy things in Arabia, a way of transport, which is the flying carpet, and a turban to start the tour.

The first thing they could see was the market where Aladdin and his monkey Abu were waiting for them to teach them how to buy. Pupils could buy typical jewelry, fruit (apples, dates, and bananas), bread, tea or vessels. After the market, kids went to the palace were Jaffar was waiting for them. He taught them Arabian rules from the film trough activities and poetry. One rule was “Don’t steal or they will cut your hands” and another one was “The princess only has to marry a prince”. Then, they went to the palace garden where the princess Jasmine was dancing. She played some Arabic music and taught students how to do it following the instructions of a video. Children liked it and both, girls and boys, enjoyed this corner and danced together. The Genie was with the pupils during the whole tour helping them if they had any problem to speak English or if they didn’t understand something. Every time that the students finished a corner and they had to change to other one, the characters of those corners joined them to the next one, so at the end we were all together dancing and having fun. Finally, we gave them a bracelet as a little present from Arabia to make them remember this day and how great it was.

Personally, I liked very much the workshop and doing the performance with children instead of do it with our classmates but I also have to say that it was very exhausted but it was worth it.

But maybe, to create a character is not as easy as it seems, we should follow some steps to have clear the idea and to produce a complete character with more than one face and multidimensional instead of creating a simple one.

But, how do we bring a character to life?

1. Pick a gender and give it a name. It can be male or female. You can give it a common or an unusual name but remember that the fact that the name isn’t original doesn’t mean it’s boring.

2. Choose what your character is going to be. You can find many fantasy creatures in fairytales from ogres to speakers’ objects. Now it’s time for you to pick yours from the different categories: elder, hero, true love, villain, helper, friend, messenger, the girl.

3. Select a period of time. The character can be a time traveler or it can live in the Middle Ages, in the future, in other planet, with the Ancient Egypt, in the Roman Empire, at present or in any other time of the history. Watch out! The followings steps have to be connected with the period of time you have chosen.

4. Choose a personality. Describe it just with 3 adjectives, the most important ones and after that develop and elaborate the personality more. Remember that you also have to define the age of your character or at least if it is a child, a teenager, an adult or an elder. Normally, the characters that we like the most are those who are not perfect and in consequence those who have a weak spot or a dark side. You can think about its origins and explain why it is like that or why it has a particular nature. It is also important to describe and to explain how it interacts with other characters of the story.

5. Give it an appearance. If not the character will be almost nonexistence. You have to describe it physically, the color of the eyes, the hair, the height, the weight, the clothes and any strange or shocking physical characteristic.

6. Likes and dislikes. Think about the hobbies and activities of your character, things that it likes to do or not. It can be anything, from physical activities to cultural and intellectual activities. The possibilities are endless.

7. Character evolution. Usually every character changes along the story according to the adventures and situations that it has to live. Your character has a determined personality at the beginning of the story but you have to think where and how your character is going to end and what its objective is. Is it a good guy who turns to the bad side or the opposite? Has it a hidden power or trauma that is going to come to light? Is it going to achieve its goal? Many things can happen while you are writing but I recommend you to think how your character is going to end.

Your character can be inspired on you or in other person, can be your antagonist or it can be completely imaginary. Now your character is ready to play in the story and to interact with others!

Thank you very much for reading me and I hope these seven tips can help you in the creations of your own fairytale character.

What these reading map express is if you like reading, how did you start reading, what kind of books you liked at different ages, what is your favorite book until the moment, what books have you read and how is your “reading life” changing and developing.

After have seen all the pictures and have written some comments (because aside from the reading map, there are so many artist in the class J), we had to choose our favorite reading map of the half group two without seeing at whom it belonged while they were outside the classroom.

I chose one so nice which had some pictures, sentences and things in 3D that you could touch and move. But the main reason why I chose that pictures was because of the tittles’ books that there were written on it. There were many of the books that I have read during my life. When the others came into the class, they had to look for the person who had their picture. I was talking with the owner of the drawing for a while about some books, our opinion of the stories, if we liked them or not, how much time we spent in reading them and giving each other some suggestions of books that we liked but the other has not yet had the opportunity to read.

After some minutes, the half group one left the classroom and the operation with the reading maps was repeated.

The thing I liked the most of this museum was the “surprising fact”. When we picked a drawing we did not know at whom it belonged. Some people chose the reading map of the last person they think they will have something in common. Then, they started talking and they realize that both of them have the same taste of books.

Sometimes, we think we are so different between us and this activity, which I liked a lot and that I will definitely do with my students, taught us that we are not as different as we think we are.

Reading is so important and not only in the academic context but in all the rest areas: they develop their imagination, understand other cultures, increase their general knowledge, to relax, to escape to someone else’s world… but what can we do as teachers to make children read?

There are many activities that we can do with the students in the library or in the classroom but they have to be adjusted to the age and level of the pupils. Here I give you some ideas to use with students to encourage reading:

-We can create a little library in the classroom. Each student has to bring his three favorites books and share them with the rest of the class so everybody can pick a book of one of his classmates loves. They should be change the collection of the books each trimester. The idea is that pupils choose a story according to their own likes.

-Meeting with authors. Pupils can establish a talk with an author about the book that they have been reading and ask him or her about the story or about his/her life as a writer.

-Storyteller time. An alternative to the typical storyteller is that the students of higher courses tell a story to the students of lower courses.

-Go on an excursion to an editorial to see the process of making books. Talk with the illustrators of the books and to the people who read books and who decide to publish them or not.

-Play role. Students should read a drama and perform it like in the theater. The objective with this activity is to teach the pupils to respect the comas and the different pauses during the reading in an entertaining way.

-Interactive activities. As we are working with TICS there are many activities that help to improve reading and writing and children can learn in a funny way. Here there is an example: http://www.genmagic.net/lengua3/alrev1.swf

This is just some ideas that we can use but there are many others so let’s blow up your imagination and create a new one. I hope you liked and it is useful for you.

I’m sure many of you have seen this video in Facebook or in other social media and maybe you liked and you agree with it. It talks about the artists, any kind of artist and what they do. And you might say, “What does it with the subject about? It’s about literature. It talks about “El Quijote” and all of those novels that we read when we are older. But at the beginning, and barely read, we are introduced into literature through tales and little stories by adults who read to us.

As it says, we would not be the same without any of those creations that now we consider indispensable classics. And some of those classics are tales, fables and books that we have read or studied. Since we were little, our parents read tales to us before go to sleep; or in the kindergarten the teacher told us a story to teach us many things; and without those little steps we were nothing nowadays. Because…How would we be without Gloria Fuertes and her riddles and poems; without Charles Perrault or Hans Christian Andersen; without having read Hansel and Gretel, The King Midas, The three little pigs, The ant and the grasshopper, The ugly duckling, The pied piper of Hamelin, Puss in boots, Peter and the wolf, Little Red Riding Hood, The Emperor’s new clothes, The steadfast tin soldier, Jack and the Beanstalk, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Bluebeard, Juan Sinmiedo, The goose that laid the golden eggs, The little match-seller, and without all the things that the stories taught to us even when we weren’t  aware of it?

Personally, I always liked to read and that’s because of my father, who read to me since I was little before go to sleep. He read to me all the entire library until in the school they taught me to read and then I could choose and pick the books following my likes and preferences. I read before go to sleep, during the long ways by car and even when I didn’t know what to do. There are many people like me. Because I’m sure, all of us have our favorite tale or story; or that book that when we finish it and we close it we say “Wow!”. Because of that literature is so much important for personal development and to develop many competences like the imagination, the vocabulary, the writing comprehension or writing texts.

For literature there always has to be some “muerto de hambre” to write for us to enjoy, and for that, thank you.