Suggesting that reading plays aloud is an effective way to promote literacy and history in the grade 4-8 classroom, this book presents 22 short, readers' theater plays about extraordinary American men and women. The plays in the book are designed to enrich classroom learning by building oral literacy, fostering a knowledge of American heritage, encouraging an appreciation of acting and the theater, drawing out quiet or at-risk students, and providing an exciting, hands-on, student-centered format for learning. Extension activities (organized into "Talk about It,""Write about It," and "Report about It" sections) are at the end of every play in the book. The famous Americans featured in the plays are: Christopher Columbus, Ben Franklin, George Washington, Phillis Wheatley, Merriweather Lewis and William Clark, Davy Crockett, Abraham Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Tubman, John Muir, Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell, George Washington Carver, Susan LaFlesche Picotte, Nellie Bly, Orville and Wilbur Wright, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Amerlia Earhart, Langston Hughes, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., Jackie Robinson, Cesar Chavez, and Neil Armstrong. (RS)