Outward Bound Czech Republic developed a course for international participants in which everybody is simultaneously an actor and viewer in a 2-week theater play. A five-stage process of developing "dramaturgy" allows instructors to adapt the scenario to participant needs and thus enhance the likelihood of challenge and transfer of…

Demonstrates quantitatively that children with learning disabilities can improve and maintain social and oral expressive language (speaking) skills through a creative drama program with an emphasis on specific social and oral language usage. Demonstrates how social skills may be targeted successfully by developing instruments appropriate to…

Investigates the use of dramatic case method in initial teacher education in London, England, and in Australia. Considers whether experienced teacher-mentors, through the use of their own cases, could make what they know about drama teaching explicit to student teachers. Explores whether the use of written and oral cases provided accessible…

Presents an exercise that will show acting students how to tell the audience a good story. Discusses how students must assume responsibility for creating the best possible story based on a central object as insignificant as a penny might appear to be. Describes experiences of taking the students through four "rounds" of this exercise. (SC)

This article describes a successful teacher-professor collaboration to plan interdisciplinary curriculum and team-teach it in a first-grade classroom. The goal was to use literature and drama to help children learn about and find meaning in African American experiences and perspectives. Writing, staging, and performing three plays about African…

As part of his Ph.D study in Brisbane, the author was observing one classroom where the teacher was enchanting as an educator, surrounded by excited, engaged, chattering children making dinosaurs. At another center, he felt dismayed as he observed an all too familiar table of organized collage and paints being prepared by staff. They were all…

Nausea, sweating, weak knees, and a dry mouth are all symptoms associated with the fear of standing in front of an audience. Considering the anxiety that public speaking produces, students of any age are facing a significant challenge when they speak in front of a group. While speaking is considered to be an integral part of language arts, it…

This paper describes the evaluation of a drama production which involved 6 young people with profound and complex learning needs and 23 pupils from a mainstream school. The young people worked together on the project for nearly 2 years. At the end of the project we wanted to find out what the young people with disabilities thought of the inclusion…

This study explores a teacher's understandings of the role of play and her use of play in literacy learning serving children from diverse language backgrounds. The participants in this study were a public pre-kindergarten teacher and her class. Data were collected from interviews, informal conversations, observations, and self-reflexive notes. The…

This article seeks to better understand the relation between local and traditional modes of communication and health literacy within the context of a rural West Nile community in Northern Uganda. Drawing on social semiotics (multimodality) and Bakhtin's notion of the carnival, the focus is on a group of women participating in a grassroots literacy…

While some studies have examined second language (L2) learning in young children who have at least one peer who speaks the same first language (L1) in the same preschool classroom (Clarke, 1999; Damhuis, 1993; Fraser & Wakefield, 1986), little research has been done concerning a young child learning an L2 through play in a natural setting in…

This paper presents creative drama activities based on Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" for use in ninth-grade English classrooms. The activities are divided into sections on improvisation, pantomime, image-making and creative drama, reader's theater, drama scenes, interior monologue, and producing plays. Each section of the paper…

Designed for elementary school teachers, the document presents two short puppet plays about children who are different. The first story focuses on a young boy's concerns about being adopted. The second play is about a boy who is learning disabled. The plays, which require only two acting characters, are accompanied by two song lyrics and a list of…

Argues that creative dramatics offers many outlets for expression and creative activity to children who are shy, unable to speak up and act out imaginary adventures, or who lack confidence or self-esteem. (RB)

The guide to dramatic activities is appropriate for use with handicapped children and adults as well as the non-handicapped. The introduction notes the value the dramatic arts can have for students, suggests that special education often focuses primarily on the student's inabilities rather than abilities, and notes that career and job-seeking…