Ancient literature can seem quite daunting, especially if you’ve never read any of the books or epic poems before. But, have you considered adding drama to your ancient literature time? 

Hi! My name is Danielle and through my 20 years of homeschooling I have found there are a lot of creative ways to fit drama into your homeschool. Here's a way to integrate your ancient literature studies with drama.

How Do You Act out an Epic Poem?

When I think of a poem I think of a couple of stanzas, or for a long poem I may think about Paul Revere’s Ride. Those are poems I feel I can handle, although sometimes even a one stanza poem can be more complex than its longer counterparts. 😉

When it came time for my kids to read The Iliad, The Odyssey and The Aeneid, I was a little overwhelmed by their size. It seemed a bit daunting to take on these ancient works, but adding drama helped my students and me better understand these epic poems.

Now, we can’t act out the entire epic poem as that would take way too long, but we can have students choose their favorite scenes, or go through and choose some important ones to be presented as a drama in chronological order. These epic poems have many books in them, so sometimes it’s good to choose major scenes from different books to help tell the story. One year we did this and presented it to the other high school classes. It really helped them to understand the overall plot of The Aeneid.

As students come together or present a piece on their own, they have to think about the character or characters they are representing. What does the scene look like? What would this character sound like and act like? How would the characters interact with each other? Are they enemies? Family? Best friends? Are they fighting a war or trying to persevere through some incredibly difficult challenges? Are they selfish or very generous? All of these questions help them dig deeper into the meaning of the story which is ultimately what we want. Drama just makes it more fun and oftentimes incredibly entertaining.

What if I have a Student Who Doesn’t Like to Act?

Not all students like to act or are good at memorizing lines, but that’s okay because it gives them a challenge to grow from. I’ve seen the shyest students turn into confident actors and the kids who struggled the most with memorizing overcome their struggles and persevere. It is always incredible to watch a student stretch themselves and say, “I feel so accomplished!” I’ve had the blessing of experiencing that throughout my years of homeschooling, which encourages me to push students to raise the bar just a little out of reach to feel the accomplishment of doing something hard. 

Sometimes kids are natural born actors and jump at the chance to perform. With these students it’s good to allow more creativity with the role and opportunities to take on more than the minimum because you know they can handle it. Maybe they get more lines to memorize or maybe they take on two roles and have to switch back and forth. Maybe they come up with props, costumes and scenery for their skit. Maybe they get to help direct and encourage their fellow students as they overcome their fears of acting.

We’ve had awesome battle scenes, emotional heartbreaking scenes and hilarious scenes because someone decided to get creative and do something unexpected. Sometimes the guys and girls in my class switched roles. I’ve even had students who still had lines memorized a year later because it was so memorable acting out the scenes and taking the time to really think through them.

For The Odyssey, a student put a paper plate on his face with an eyeball drawn on it to represent the Cyclops. It made the scene so funny with that little addition and he really got into his role. He was one of my students in the previous year who never memorized lines and therefore never got to a point of acting. This year he grew more confident and would add little props or something for a costume to get more into his role. He also taught himself a technique to memorize lines since he knew he had to find a way to conquer this struggle. When met with a challenge, we want our kids to persevere and push through it.

We also read Oedipus Rex. This book is not great for a young audience, so we did not present it in front of our group, but it was really fun to act out. We came up with the idea to use different accents. Every year would be different because every student brought their own fun accent. My son tried on numerous occasions to do a foreign accent, which usually blended into multiple countries and therefore made it hilarious because it was forever changing.

In one scene, one of the students used the voice of Yoda - hilarious. Some of my more quiet students actually came out of their shells a little more for this one. One did the voice of a southern lawyer which totally fit the role. She was able to maintain it consistently throughout her time presenting. Instead of having kids avoid coming up to perform, they actually volunteered. Meanwhile we would discuss what actually happened in each scene to make sure the kids were following the storyline and then move on to another scene. 

To have a better spontaneous acting experience, it is helpful to read the story or at least the scenes you plan to perform beforehand to have a handle on the characters and the plot.

My daughter’s class loved acting so much, they incorporated many scenes from Shakespeare and Ancient Lit into their graduation event. Two of the boys had a fight scene, with convincing looking swords, in the middle of the aisle of the audience. It was awesome! The students took full ownership to learn their lines and work with fellow students on staging and scene changes.

Benefits of Adding Drama to Ancient Literature

You do have the time to fit drama into your homeschool by integrating it with your ancient literature studies. There are also a lot of benefits beyond watching a great performance for your students as they act out the literature they are reading:

• Pushing themselves to do more than they think they can

• Being creative

• Digging deeper into the characters and the plot to act out a scene

• Taking ownership of their work

Have you read Have Fun With a Poetry Café? It's another great way to add dramatic flair to any type of poetry!

Maybe your students are younger and not ready to conquer the epics yet? Check out The Big Race – A Montage of Aesop’s Fables for another ancient literature acting opportunity. 

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Thanks for joining us!

Danielle at homeschooldrama.com