Creative drama teacher Phyllis Vecchia has an innovative way to get history across to sixth graders: Rather than talking about suffragettes Amelia Bloomer and Susan B. Anthony, and the abolitionist Henry Stanton, she has them BE Amelia Bloomer and Susan B. Anthony and Henry Stanton. In a rousing half-hour in Amy Reece’s sixth grade class at the Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School on Thursday of last week, Ms. Vecchia guided the entire class through improvised paces of the women’s rights movement from 1840 to 1860. She used her own loosely drafted script which included material from You Forgot Your Skirt, Amelia Bloomer by Shana Corey,

To get the students situated in time, the dramatist asked, “What was life like for women in the 19th century?”

Girls and boys answered the question almost in unison, “They couldn’t vote!”

“They had no rights!”

“If a husband and wife divorced, the husband had custody of the children!”

Ms. Vecchia asked, “What if a woman married a man and moved furniture from her family’s home into their new living room? Who did the furniture belong to?”

Several students called out, “The husband!”

“That’s correct!” said Ms. Vecchia. “Women owned nothing!”

All of the kids, Mrs. Reece, and the parents on hand were incorporated to play big parts, little parts, and what they call in the theatre walk-on roles. The main players wore long skirts for the women (until they changed to trendy bloomers) and hats and ties for the men. The seated audience, when not incorporated into the action, cheered during conventions for the abolition of slavery and for women’s rights in Seneca Falls, and for a later convocation for human rights in London.

Ms. Vecchia, through fast-moving vignettes, introduced us to Lucretia Mott, a Quaker, antiwar activist and suffragette from Nantucket, and she also revealed Ms. Bloomer’s formation of the Seneca Falls Ladies Temperance Society designed to protect women and children from drunken men. Ms. Bloomer also published an antislavery, prowomen paper called The Lily.

“Proper” women in hats and tight corsets turned out to protest the outrageous new movement; some of them fainted from emotions running too high for their corsets to contain. While the conservative ladies were busy passing out (the students had fun with this) in Seneca Falls, Susan B. Anthony met Elizabeth Cady Stanton and their brilliant collaboration endured for the 50 years that it took to pass the 19th Amendment, ushering in women’s right to vote.

We can readily believe that after 30 exciting minutes of enacting all this major history, these students are going to remember every name, date and corset emergency. The enthusiasm in the room was palpable and constant.

Ms. Vecchia has four other reenactments that she has developed for Island history classes: The story of Marina Silvia of Brazil and her mission to save the rain forests, the life of Phyllis Wheatley, the first African American poet, the life and times of Eleanor Roosevelt, and the discoveries of Madame Curie.

Before inventing her own brand of teaching history, Ms. Vecchia involved herself in plenty of other activities. She grew up in Bethel, Conn., and studied at both UMass-Amherst and in London. She has also lived in Australia and received a degree in sociology from Lesley College. She moved to the Vineyard 29 years ago and has a 25-year-old son in Brighton, who has a career as unusual as his mother’s: He films skateboarders for a living. Ms. Vecchia also has a 13-year-old daughter at the Tisbury School.

Ms. Vecchia was just beginning to hatch the idea of creative drama as a teaching tool when she met Sheila Bracey at a Women Empowered conference. Ms. Bracey directed her to the MV Donor Collaborative, where the aspiring dramatist encountered West Tisbury philanthropist Mal Jones. He offered her a grant to pursue her history curriculum. Mr. Jones was in attendance at last week’s suffragettes playfest and good-naturedly volunteered for walk-on roles.

Ms. Vecchia is enthusiastic about developing new short plays revolving around women’s rights through other epochs, including the early 70s that gave us Germaine Greer, Gloria Steinem, Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Friedan, and tens of millions of followers who broke the glass ceiling and changed the course of history yet again.

So far Ms. Vecchia has taught her brand of living, breathing history at the Tisbury and the charter schools. With any luck, sixth graders from other Island schools will get a chance to perform the dramatist’s reenactments. She can be contacted at pvcreativedrama@yahoo.com.