They often come up with great ideas which we add to our lesson for future use. The teacher is careful to explain the background situation, including customs of the time, and the feelings of the characters in the lesson. In this instance those feelings of Joseph, his brothers, and the father, Jacob, are elaborated. Jacob's emotion is shown by the tearing of his clothes and putting on of sackcloth. After the lesson the students draw to see which character they will portray in the dramatization.
All students participate.
Sometimes we have more parts than students, so we let them play double rolls, or we stand in. In the story of Joseph in the pit, Joseph's robe is striped and we have two alike. One of them is stained with red paint for the goat's blood. We have large cardboard camels which we load with burlap sacks filled with styrofoam or cereal boxes representing the wares of the Ishmaelites. A deep cardboard box can serve as a pit.