Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“Recasting Charlotte’s Web”

In this activity, students will reimagine Melissa’s school play set in a school completely accepting of all gender identities.

From the first reading of Charlotte’s Web, Melissa deeply connects to Charlotte. She longs to play that character in the school play but is told she cannot play a girl’s part. Let’s imagine how Melissa’s experience would be different in a school focused on accepting all gender identities. The play has been cast with Melissa as Charlotte, and the school community is thrilled.

• Create two forms of media for the play.

o Poster

o Loudspeaker announcement

o Article for school newspaper

o Podcast

o Playbill

Share one or both of your artifacts in a class presentation.

Discuss details that stand out to you from the presentations that clearly demonstrate the support in the community, how this support differs from what Melissa experiences in the novel, and how this activity connects to one or more of the themes of Secrecy and Shame, Natural Versus Normal, and Coming Out in an Ambivalent World.

Teaching Suggestion: Showing examples of playbills or talking through ways your school advertises for events could help students as they plan.