Second, I like the idea of actually having students act things out in a brief format. I’ve typically given a chart to my students to have the summarize the major action of each scene (typically I do this for Shakespeare plays). While it’s a good exercise in summary, I’m not entirely convinced that it’s something that gets the students really thinking about what happened. I may have to try something like that.

A Secondary Ed. student I know introduced me to 30 second Bunny Theatre. I usethis for very long, complex plots. I break the students into groups and give them up to one minute to act out the scene. After they see the action, they can then ask better questions.