Learning Chinese History Through Textbook Drama 

Article/Hailey　Photo/Alex

"Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Water Margin", "Journey to the West" and "Dream of Red Mansions", are widely acknowledged to be four traditional Chinese literary masterpieces. Since their publication, they have attracted and deeply influenced generations of readers in China, and also have exerted an extensive and far-reaching influences on Chinese culture.

With the guidance of teachers, Year 5 students recently started to learn about masterpieces of classical Chinese literature. They got to know more about the book characters by reading and learning those wonderful stories, which also stimulate student’s passions for learning traditional masterpieces. Learning the stories is no longer enough, they decided to move those stories and characters from the books to the stage!

Write the script

Textbook drama

Textbook drama is a kind of drama that mainly based on the content of Chinese textbooks. After studying from class, students will create their own scripts and perform.  

Performance day

In order to prepare for the textbook drama performance, Y5 actors couldn't wait to select their repertoire, write the script, and prepare costumes and props. After everything was ready, the children began to rehearse intensively in their free time. On the class performance day, wonderful performances were performed by students. In the end, each class sent a group that represent the class to perform in the auditorium. On that day, with the effort of teachers and students, the ingenious plays were staged wonderfully and won bursts of applause from the audience.

Learn from acting

The textbook drama activity is an extension of classroom teaching, which is not only a chance for students to play a role of book characters but also they can learn from acting. Now, the activity is finished, but students are still having fun to read traditional Chinese literary masterpieces. We hope they can keep reading and keep learning more and more about Chinese culture!