Tableaux Vivant



Lord of the Flies tableaux vivant:
Group 5 fight scene

After learning about tableaux vivants through The Reading Teacher's Tableaux vivants in the literature classroom by Rebecca Tortello, our MD400 class began to make our own "living pictures".  Group 5, reenacting the classic Lord of the Flies, took a digital camera on the road to explore how to capture a scene frozen in time.  From only two pages of text, our group was able to create several photos to depict scenes in which the characters argue, kill and name a new leader to their tribe.  Each of us took on roles to act out what the characters in the story were doing, and how we interpreted the material.

Tableaux vivants provide students a way in which to act out parts of literature for several purposes.  First, performing in a tableaux vivant allows students a chance to use their kinesthetic abilities to create a product based on literature.  Often, teaching styles focus on the auditory and visual learners in the classroom, neglecting the fact that some learn through movement.  Second, tableaux vivants can be used as a pre-teaching strategy to elicit prior knowledge and predict what one might find in a text.  Third, they can also be used to assess student's comprehension after reading a piece of literature.  And, lastly, tableaux vivants provide opportunities for students to work interactively and collaborate as a group to create a product.  In our case, I felt that Group 5 used the tableaux vivant not only to take a break from the lab and move a bit, but also to get to know one another and, frankly, act a little silly!