Dramatizing Chekhov

We read the Anton Chekhov short story, A Slander, and I asked how it was just like 8th grade. Most everyone pretty easily saw the gossip, the anxiety about gossip, the vanity, the defensiveness that were shot through the story as timeless. At least, they were all present in the story and they're all present in 8th grade. That's enough data points to qualify as universal.

So, we're turning it into a little play for class. They get to add electronic communication devices to their skits, as these can make all the above-named vices more intense more quickly. I'm hoping that we get a little glimpse of just how universal these forms of destruction are and how texting, Facebooking, etc., can too easily slide into that destruction.

That, and everybody in education thinks it's a 'cool' activity to dramatize what you've read. I think the students 'do more' with the material, but just what it is and how I can tell, I'm not sure.

Maybe I'll figure it out this time.