Designed to be used by teachers with varying degrees of dramatic arts experience and by students with limited English proficiency as well as native English speakers, this clear, simple guide familiarizes teachers and children with classic literature through the narrative-mime approach. The guide contains: (1) eight of Aesop's fables adapted and…

Assuming no prior dramatic training or experience with adolescents, this book contains approximately 50 dramatic activities that have been devised, adapted, and used with success with adolescent performers, ages 12 to 15. Not a textbook for performers, the book serves as a resource for drama teachers and coaches, Scout leaders, church youth…

Suggesting that improvisation is an invaluable technique that can be used in acting classes and in rehearsals for school, amateur, and professional productions, this book presents 900 improvisation ideas for teachers and directors to use. The first section presents ideas for improvisations on character conflicts, including teen/parent conflicts,…

This teaching resource provides practical information and activities for involving elementary students in storytelling arts projects. The projects are designed to encourage experimentation with dramatic communication through gesture and body language while wearing masks, manipulating puppets, and moving interactive scenery. Ten chapters are…

War play is play with a toy that initiates violence or play that involves the imitation of war. War play can involve: (1) the use of toys based on television cartoon shows to imitate the action in the cartoons; (2) play with replicas of war paraphernalia or manipulatives shaped into guns; and (3) dramatic play. The negative effects on children…

Speaking activities should be stressed along with reading experiences in teaching-learning situations. It is important for learners to develop needed skills in reporting to others in a group setting. The teacher and the pupils in the classroom should support each other so that satisfying experiences in oral communication are an end result.…

Developed by the participants of the Huntington Theatre Company's Master Works Study in Shakespeare, this collection presents single lesson plans and unit plans for teaching Elizabethan drama. The collection presents 12 lesson plans (spanning one or a few days of instruction) and 15 unit plans (ranging over several weeks) suitable for secondary…

Theater isn't just Broadway and Hollywood but rather something to enrich the lives of all people, and a western university troupe is out to prove it. (Editor)

Young students are more motivated to write when allowed to use colored felt-tip pens. (JH)

This paper analyzes a conversational episode from a study of children's play in an educational setting to demonstrate conversational analysis as a research methodology. The analysis reveals the interactional means by which a dramatic play sequence is orchestrated. Children are seen to be sophisticated in their use of talk to create and shape the…

The paper describes how creative dramatics activities can be structured to promote appropriate leisure and recreational behaviors in autistic adolescents. The foundation of such an approach is the spontaneous, guided, and improvisational play processes of children. In addition to leisure and recreational skill development, creative dramatics are…

In school theater, if children feel that they and not the teachers have created the characters, or have influenced or created the script, songs, sets, and dance--in other words, if they "own" what they act--they act better and enjoy it more. When children do not have ownership, they go through the motions, stand where they are told, say…

Two major questions were explored by this study: "Will the use of socio-dramatic play increase the use of language?" and, "Will the use of language in fantasy play transfer to a cognitive task?" Results affirmatively answer these questions. (Author)

A sequence of behaviorally specified drama skills needs to be developed--but cautiously. (JH)

Describes a program which was designed to encourage childern with cleft palates to verbalize experiences through creative dramatics. (SET)