All in the Family

Every family has a story to tell. Prompt your students to create a theatrical retelling inspired by a famous family, like the Jacksons from American pop culture, the Medicis from Italian history or the Soong family from Chinese politics.

To begin, ask your students to research a famous historical family and draw out their family tree on a piece of paper. Students may also choose to draw a tree based on their biological or chosen family.

Next, task them with choosing a relationship on their tree between two people that they want to explore more. Ask them to consider how these two people might interact with questions like: How did they meet? What did they think of each other? and How did they spend time together?

Based on learned historical context, and using their imagination to build on that information, invite each student to write a scene between their two familial characters. This may be an explosive family drama, a romantic tragedy or a comedic adventure. Introduce theatrical elements like stage directions, character voices and monologue as tools for the class to utilize in their writing.

To culminate, put on a mini play festival where each student stages a reading of their work and brings their own history to life.

To support this unit, use the My Anthem of Awesomeness Creativity Page.