Drama- The Polar Express


The book I chose for the Drama genre is, The Polar Express, written and illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg. This book tells of a boy who believes in Santa Claus and Christmas and gets on aboard a train that takes him and many other children to the North Pole. On the train, he goes on a journey that leads him to meeting Santa Claus and receive a very special gift. The meaning of the book is to emphasize that believing is seeing not seeing is believing.

When evaluating the components of Drama and this book, this book can be converted into a drama. The book contains several characters with dialogue and a narrative background alongside the characters. The book contains illustrations that emphasize a lot of action in the background and storyline.

When evaluating the elements of Social Justice, this book does not effectively address issues of Social Justice but can fit into the criteria for Element 1 of Self-Love and Knowledge. The storyline talks about the boy having a strong belief in christmas and Santa Claus and the story demonstrates how his belief grows stronger through strong self-love and knowledge of the belief.

In my classroom, I would use this book for a full classroom Creative Drama activity, especially one in where the students would re-tell the story in a drama, with their interpretation of the scenario as told in the book. I would use this activity to reinforce their learning of using scripts and expressions while acting as well as proper eye contact with other actors/actresses.

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