Describes an eight-step four-week assignment for teaching theater students about blocking and stage directions. Outlines each assignment in detail and provides questions for the students at each stage--from choosing the excerpt or play to staging and directing. (PRA)

Outlines a basic approach to "Readers Theatre," the communication of literature in a theatrical context. Contains the exercises "Sardines Today!" which promotes awareness of poetic setting, and "Dress Up Day!" which presents an opportunity to explore the role of suggestive costuming. (PRA)

Describes how the spiral curriculum, which introduces theater in elementary school, provides a basis for mastery teaching. Provides ideas for curriculum development, management, facilities, equipment, and costuming for the elementary, junior high, and high school programs. (PRA)

Explains a classroom experiment to create a folk story about the trickster, a folklore metaphor, through dramatic role playing, improvisation, and imaginative play. Describes the activities used, including details of the students' dramatic role playing and the use of "gibberish" as language. Discusses the methods used for creation of a…

Investigates the substance and conditions of collaborative learning in a specific drama course, using a case study approach to trace the individual experiences of six high school classmates. Suggests that collaborative creativity can only be conceptualized in fluid action. Describes factors related to students' specific working environment. (SG)

Considers the effects of using role in classroom drama lessons with underachieving urban middle school students. Describes the sequence of drama lessons conducted and analyzes data collected from field notes and interviews with the students and their teachers. Presents a theoretical framework for considering some of the learning and behavioral…

Allison L. Downey, a middle school English teacher, has used dramatic tableaux to help students think critically about literature as well as social and historic episodes. It is noted that students move to more abstract thinking, going beyond plot to an understanding of theme and metaphor.

Anna Quinn, an English teacher, describes her use of dramatic activities for interpreting texts along with other techniques to help improve college reading skills. Students have demonstrated measurable increases in reading levels by using drama to fill textual gaps, charades to increase vocabulary, blending into the characters, predicting the…

While attending the 2002 Arizona Book Festival, the authors could not help but notice how many books there were for adults and children, but how few there were for teens. Obviously, they were very concerned that the youngsters who had outgrown Lemony Snicket would not know where to find wonderful books for young adults. They authors knew they had…

This paper presents a defense for the use of historical scripted conversations in science. We discuss drama's use of both expository and narrative text forms to expand the language forms available for a variety of learners, the use of scripted conversations as a defensible curriculum design to foster learning in general and science in particular,…

A prop box is a teacher-created resource full of age-appropriate and meaningful activities focused on a central theme. Prop boxes work much like learning centers in an elementary classroom with the important addition of providing opportunities for socio-dramatic play. Prop box play engages students in self-chosen activities that promote critical…

This book provides suggestions for drama activities and materials based on 14 classic and contemporary fairy tales suitable for both stage and classroom performance. After the introduction (which outlines different ways the stories can used dramatically) and a "Welcome to the Box Office" section, the book provides materials and…

Noting that new approaches must be found to decrease the numbers of inmates returning to United States prisons and to provide means for productive changes that will result in self-improvement and new options for inmates both inside and outside the prison after their release, a drama program was established in 1979 for inmates at the Federal…

Current writings on the functions of the left and right hemispheres of the brain are examined, focusing upon possible implications for improving present educational techniques. It has been generally accepted by researchers that the organizational and verbalizing processes are functions of the left cerebral hemisphere, while creative and intuitive…

The drama activities in this teaching guide are designed to develop second language learning skills by constructing situations that require the student to concentrate on the meaning and emotional content of language rather than on its structure. In an attempt to involve the whole personality of the learner in the acquisition of language, the…