Searching for America Volume One The New World

<p>Have you ever wanted to teach a thorough survey of American Literature but could not find the time? <em>Searching for America </em>takes some of America’s greatest works of fiction and non-fiction and adapts them into Reader’s Theater script-stories. Now classic texts such as <em>The Scarlet Letter </em>can be experienced in a whole new way! Reader’s Theater script-stories allow students to break away from silent reading and participate in a group “acting out” experience that brings literature to life. By making literature an exciting group-learning event this script-story strategy motivates reluctant learners  helps struggling readers become a part of the story and encourages all students to dig deeper into the texts. American Literature has never been this exciting and engaging! The script-stories included in this series are designed for students grades 6-12. Each script-story is prefaced by a 2-page teacher guide providing a synopsis of the adapted text relevant background information and commentary anticipatory questions for pre-script discussion essential questions to help analyze the "big ideas" behind each text recall questions to check reading comprehension and instructions for teaching commonly-tested terms and literary devices using each script.</p><p>This volume of 11 script-stories includes Native American myths like “The Flying Canoe” and “Gluscabi” non-fiction selections from early American Literature such as “The Explorers of the New World” “Mayflower: The Voyage of the Pilgrims” “The Journey of Olaudah Equiano” “Captured by Indians: The Narrative of Mary Rowlandson” and fictional works like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “The Courtship of Miles Standish” and a four-part adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s <em>The Scarlet Letter</em>. In addition an interactive classroom strategy game gives students a chance to build their own New World colony while competing against their fellow classmates.</p><p>Zachary Hamby is an author illustrator and experienced educator. He has spoken at many conferences including the NCTE National Convention on the benefits of using Reader's Theater script-stories in the secondary classroom. He is also the author of the <em>Reaching Olympus </em>series which teaches world mythology. He also operates two websites <em>mythologyteacher.com</em> and <em>creativeenglishteacher.com</em> . He currently teaches high school in the Ozarks where he lives with his wife and children.</p>