Literary Dominoes- from Jack Nilles

Focus: Students who have difficulty seeing the connection between events (Post-Reading)

Name: Literary Dominos (Activity)

Grades: 9-12

Time: 45 minutes

Rationale: This activity gets students comprehending, analyzing, and reviewing plot by properly ordering and connecting events in a text. It also asks them to synthesize those events by answering “What if…?” questions and applying them to a text. Finally, students are responsible for evaluating plot points in terms of importance when deciding whether or not to include events in the activity.

Procedure: I’ve taken this activity from Kelly Gallagher’s book, Deeper Reading: Comprehending Challenging Texts, 4-12. In-depth discussion of the activity as well as diagrams can be found there.

First split the class into groups so that each group has three or four students. Give each group a pack of dominos, scrap paper, scissors, tape, and a pen or pencil. Instruct them that it will be their job to write all of the important events of the text they read on a piece of paper that can then be cut out and taped to an individual domino for each plot point. Next, have them order the dominos so that each plot point is placed next to the event it causes in sequential order within the text. If several different plots take off from one event, the students should represent this with the dominos branching apart. Also have students answer “What if…?” type questions to have them think about where the plot would have gone had events occurred differently – represent this by more dominos branching off. In the end, when students tip their first domino, they should be able to see the progression of a text and how one action’s consequences cause another event the text they read. Gallagher suggests providing climax and denouement dominos for each group and having them work backwards. The activity is complex to explain, so I hope this made some sense. Check out the Gallagher text for how to perform the activity using William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

Gallagher, K. (2004). Deepening Comprehension Through Second-Draft Reading. In B. Varner (Ed.), Deeper Reading: Comprehending Challenging Texts, 4-12 (pp. 94-98). Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.