JEFFERSON TWP — For students in the Discovering Literature classes at Knoch Middle School, learning about storytelling is more than just reading: it’s about writing and performing their own plays.

While all middle school students are required to take a reading class, the students in the advanced classes have the opportunity to play around with some classic stories in a creative way, according to Patty Schuster, who teaches the eighth grade sections of Discovering Literature.

This year, the more than 120 students from sixth to eighth grade had the opportunity to write plays using a concept from the film “Wreck It, Ralph.”

In that film, Wreck-It Ralph, an arcade-game villain, decides he is sick of being the bad guy and wants some glory for himself. Ralph then jumps into other games in an attempt to become the hero.

That concept of jumping between stories is what the students used to write two plays, one called “Mix It Up, Huck” and another, “Wreck It, Watson.”

The “Mix It Up, Huck” performance was on May 26, with the “Wreck It, Watson” performance set for Wednesday.

In the first play, Huckleberry Finn is ready for a change, according to Sammy Jo Barnes, an eighth grader who played the character of Nancy Drew.

“He was unsatisfied with his book (“Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”) because he felt like Tom (Sawyer) got all of the credit,” Barnes said.

For that reason, Huck decided to leave his book and jump into other stories like “The Wizard of Oz” and “The Hunger Games,” even though that is against the rules of the library, Barnes said.

As Nancy Drew, she was responsible for making sure Huck returned to his story.

By having Huck jump into other stories and having the students write out the consequences of that, the students gain a deeper understanding of the books they have read this year, Schuster said.

The students explored why certain characters fit into certain stories, settings and plots and why a book’s theme is just as important as the plot, Schuster said.

Barnes said she learned that every character has a specific reason for being involved in a book, and part of the reader’s job is to dissect that.

“There’s a reason for why (those characters) are in their books,” she said. “(In the students’ play) When Huck went to “The Hunger Games” (world), he was like, ‘I don’t know how to fight’ and he didn’t know what to do.”

And it was the job of eighth grader Braden Zukowski to show Huck that he did not belong in certain worlds. Zukowski played Lysander from Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and his character’s primary role was to make Huck feel like he didn’t belong.

For the past month, the students have been working to create the play, brainstorming the plot and writing the script themselves, but the project was much more cross-curricular than that.

“It’s (primarily) a reading thing, but it can be a lot of different things,” Schuster said.

She said the students created all of the sets and props; some students played instruments and sang during the performance. Those who were uncomfortable acting had the opportunity to play a bigger role in writing or in stage crew positions. There’s a job for everyone, Schuster said.

“We work so hard, and they continue to impress us,” Schuster said. “It’s really rewarding to see (the final product).”

Since the project has students across three grades working together, the current sixth graders have something to work toward since the eighth graders have the most control over writing the script. And each year, those students can show remarkable growth.

“It helps bring them out of their shell,” Schuster said.

Even Barnes has noticed how much last year’s sixth graders have grown, seeing them perform this year as seventh graders — that’s her favorite part.

Zukowski loves that he has learned so many different skills with only one project. He said he’s improved his public speaking skills and learned how to analyze books in a more thoughtful way than his peers who have not taken Discovering Literature.

Sean O’Donnell, who teaches seventh grade students in Discovering Literature, said the students also benefit from learning research skills and history lessons about the time periods of the different books they read.

It’s quite a lot of work for the students, with O’Donnell and Schuster saying that the Discovering Literature students are doing the work of a typical high school upperclassman. The sixth grade students are taught by Amy Bocci.

Barnes agreed with that, saying that the eighth grade class read “A Tale of Two Cities,” a book typically geared for high school English classes.

But all that hard work is paying off in a fun and novel way.

“It’s a little harder, but you get more out of (the class),” Zukowski said.

“Wreck It, Watson,” the second and last play for the Discovering Literature students, will be performed at noon Wednesday at Knoch High School.