I used this Tribes activity several times during my teaching placements. The first time I attempted it was after a lukewarm reception of a group reading with my grade six class. We were going on a free trip to see the Hamilton Bulldogs for which we were required to read a book as a class ahead of time. Unfortunately, it was a picture book well below my grade level and my audience found the experience a little dull. Regrouping for the second half of the lesson, I decided to attempt the Tribes activity. I made small groups around the class and gave each a copy of one scene from the book. Each group was responsible for making a tableau for their scene, and we cycled through the groups as I read each portion of the text. Students were much more engaged in this revised lesson, and even my ELLs were participating fully. I used the success of this lesson to inform a later literacy activity for which we did not have time to read an entire chapter book. Groups were assigned one or two chapters and made a short skit to highlight the important aspects of the story. Again, students were engaged and we had a lot of fun witnessing the idiosyncrasies that arose from the disjoint nature of the interpretations and presentations.
