The following activities will help familiarize your students with the plot of Werther, forge connections between a variety of classroom subjects, and creative responses to the opera. They are designed to be accessible to a wide array of ages and experience levels.

Cinderella Circle

Have students stand in a large circle. Select one person to tell the story of Cinderella to the group. As the story is told, have members of the circle step into the central playing space and act out the scene being described.

Transform Yourself
As a class or in small groups, examine and discuss Laurent Pelly’s costumes for Cendrillon. Then invite students to create their own mask for the Prince’s ball—either a masquerade-style mask (covering the upper half of the face) or a medical-style mask (distribute paper masks for students to decorate).

Cinderella on Stage and Screen
Show students scenes from Massenet’s Cendrillon, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, and Disney’s Cinderella. How do each of these versions portray a key moment in the story?

Cinderella Around the World
Compare various versions of the Cinderella story as told by different cultures around the globe. 

Say It in a Letter
Love and forgiveness are both central to Cendrillon’s story. Invite students to craft a letter of love (or appreciation) to someone important to them, or invite them to craft a letter of forgiveness to someone who has hurt them.

COMMON CORE CONNECTIONS
These activities directly support the following ELA-Literacy Common Core Strands:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.6-8.3
Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.8.2
Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to the characters, setting, and plot; provide an objective summary of the text.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.5.7
Analyze how visual and multimedia elements contribute to the meaning, tone, or beauty of a text (e.g., graphic novel, multimedia presentation of fiction, folktale, myth, poem).