Juneteenth Readers Theatre Script

About this resource

What's inside this resource

Juneteenth Readers Theatre Script: An Engaging Teaching Resource

This essential teaching resource, the Juneteenth Readers Theatre Script, is perfect for public school and homeschooling environments. The product adapts seamlessly to whole group discussions, small group activities or homework assignments.

Diverse Scripts for Varied Instructional Needs

This product comes with three versions of a two-page script explaining the origins and significance of Juneteenth. These scripts provide roles for 15 speakers along with parts that all students can participate in, ensuring that everyone in your class remains engaged.

A detailed two-column version perfect for stage performances.
An easy-to-read one-column adaptation ideal for screen projection or distance learning setups.
A fill-in-the-blanks version that promotes student engagement through research or recall tasks.

The Advantages: Embodied Cognition Mechanism and More!

The use of gestures while reading enhances multiple memory systems simultaneously. Also, students delight in producing sound effects as indicated by stage directions. Further more, re-reading becomes appealing due to its script formation offering repetitive fluency enhancing their speech delivery skills.
Additionally, this Readers Theatre Script works fabulously well with audio dramas/podcasts too garnishing auditory skills efficiently! A good reading session usually completes within 8 minutes rendering it proficiently time-efficient too. Offered primarily to cater to Grades 6-11 within Social Studies/History – USA region lessons yet robust enough to stretch its realm into ‘Other’ subjects - The Juneteenth Readers Theatre Scripts stand out as highly adaptable resources fitting seamlessly into diverse pedagogical methods - aiding you at every step ensuring your instruction ends up impactful!

Preview and Resources

Please review the preview copy available on our online store platform for a comprehensive understanding of this teaching resource. Additionally, we have an additional free copy of CURRICULUM-BASED READERS THEATRE: A Guide to the Classroom Use of this Strategy available to support and optimize your lesson plans.

Get Your Copy Now!

The Juneteenth Readers Theatre Script comes in a user-friendly PDF format ready to download and enrich your classroom experience today!

What's included

A cover page crediting the script to Rosalind M. Flynn (page 1)
A two-page condensed layout of the full script, set in two columns (pages 2-3)
The full script across three pages, headed "Developed by Dr. Rosalind M. Flynn with Teachers in South Carolina" with the part key "1 - 7 = Newscasters, 8 = Granger, 15 = Rep. Al Edwards" (pages 4-6)
A fill-in-the-blanks directions page with a word bank of Texas, abolished, 1863, United States, 1866, Emancipation Proclamation, Juneteenth and emancipation (page 7)
The same script again with those words removed and blanks in their place (pages 8-10)
Direct quotations from Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and from Granger's General Order to the people of Texas
Bracketed [gesture] and [sound effect] cues, lines marked All for the whole cast, and one line marked 1-7

Resource types: Activities

In the classroom

Teaching tips & learning objectives

Learning objectives

Explain why news of emancipation reached Texas two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation took effect
Sequence the events from January 1863 through June 1865 and 1866 to the 1979 Texas bill
Recognise the alternative names for the day - Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, Liberation Day, African American Emancipation Day
Read a scripted part aloud with expression, coming in on cue with the rest of the cast
Restore key historical vocabulary to a cloze version of the same text using a word bank

Teaching tips

Fifteen numbered parts plus whole-cast lines will carry a class of about fifteen; the newscaster roles 1 to 7 have the most lines, so cast those first
The two-column condensed layout on pages 2-3 fits the whole script into a spread, which is easier to hand round for a first read-through than the three-page version
Run the complete script before the fill-in-the-blanks version - the cloze removes the exact words the performance has just put in students' mouths, which is what makes it work as a recall check
The blanks are short and several words recur, so the directions page recommends a fine-point pen and small printing
Gesture and sound-effect cues are marked but not specified, so decide as a class what each one is before the first full run
The script closes on Texas and 41 other states observing Juneteenth; if your lesson goes beyond state-level recognition you will need to bring that part of the story yourself

Skills covered

Performance reading - fifteen numbered parts plus whole-cast lines are read aloud, with [gesture] and [sound effect] cues written into the script.
Historical sequencing - the broadcast jumps from 1863 to 1865, then 1866, then 1979, and stops to ask aloud why the gap between the first two dates existed.
Reading primary quotations - Lincoln's proclamation and Granger's order to the people of Texas are quoted directly for students to speak in role.
Vocabulary recall in context - the cloze version removes abolished, emancipation, Emancipation Proclamation, Juneteenth, Texas, 1863 and 1866, to be restored from the surrounding lines and a word bank.
Choral speaking - lines marked All, and one marked 1-7, require the group to come in together on cue.

Good to know

Questions teachers ask about this resource

How are the parts divided?

Into fifteen numbered parts plus lines marked All. Parts 1 to 7 are the newscasters, part 8 is Union Major General Gordon Granger, and part 15 is Representative Al Edwards; parts 9 to 14 are further voices in the broadcast. Lines marked All are spoken by the whole cast, and one line is marked 1-7 for the newscasters together.

What does the fill-in-the-blanks version change?

It is the same script with the key historical words lifted out and a word bank supplied at the top: Texas, abolished, 1863, United States, 1866, Emancipation Proclamation, Juneteenth and emancipation. The directions note that some words are used more than once, and advise a fine-point pen because the blanks are small.

How much history does the script cover?

From the Emancipation Proclamation taking effect on January 1st 1863 to Al Edwards's 1979 bill. It sets the scene in Galveston in 1865, gives two reasons why the news arrived so late, follows the year to 1866 and the first celebrations, lists the day's other names - Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, Liberation Day, African American Emancipation Day - and ends with Texas becoming the first state to make it official.