Gives instructions for creating a shadow puppet theater in the classroom. Suggests this as a useful technique for motivating oral communication, particularly with shy children. (SJL)

Outlines an exercise that gets students to experience the oral composition of poetry. Describes methods for implementing the exercise; discusses results and advantages. (PD)

Describes an exercise that introduces students to the unique characteristics of the third-person narrator and also improves skills in observation, story telling, and analysis. (PD)

This teaching guide packet is designed to accompany a 3-part television series, "Poetry Heaven," which captures many of the brightest and most memorable moments of the 1996 Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. The series presented in the packet features 18 poets whose personalities, voices, and points of view reflect the power and…

Provides six classroom exercises to stimulate student awareness of the principles of Readers Theater. Emphasizes the use of scripts and space, flexibility of voice and body, staging, pantomime, and characterization. (PD)

This teaching guide packet is designed to be used with the television documentary "Fooling with Words" hosted by Bill Moyers featuring the 1998 Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, during which thousands of people gathered for four days to listen to, read, discuss, and celebrate contemporary poetry. The packet can be used in arts and…

Describes the use of Bertolt Brecht's theories regarding literature and performance. Details the selected use of Reader's Theatre techniques in analyzing and staging literature in the secondary classroom environment. (JMF)

This paper discusses the benefits of storytelling, especially for the classroom teacher. The paper provides 12 activities for students (Kindergarten-12) to demonstrate how storytelling can help develop communication competencies. The activities included in the paper are: folktale cinquain, The Wicked Stepmother Gets Her Day in Court, storytelling…

Notes that interaction between writers and interpreters can improve a sometimes tenuous relationship. Provides classroom assignments, performance activities, and workshops to promote interaction and understanding. (PD)

Provides an annotated bibliography of sources that will help teachers select materials and structure activities in oral interpretation, readers theatre, improvisation, and creative speaking for the English classroom. (MM)

Based on Homer's "Odyssey," this lesson plan presents activities designed to help students understand literature originally presented in one genre can, with care, be adapted to another genre; and adapters of a literary work into drama must consider dialogue and stage directions. The main activity of the lesson involves students converting a scene…

This performance guide is the result of work conducted at the University of Virginia's National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute, 1989, on "Spanish Literature in Performance," in which 25 secondary school Spanish teachers studied Spanish texts from the perspective of classroom performance to deepen knowledge of the texts and…

This performance guide is the result of work conducted at the University of Virginia's National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute, 1989, on "Spanish Literature in Performance," in which 25 secondary school Spanish teachers studied Spanish texts from the perspective of classroom performance to deepen knowledge of the texts and…

This performance guide is the result of work conducted at the University of Virginia's National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute, in 1989, on "Spanish Literature in Performance," in which 25 secondary school Spanish teachers studied Spanish texts from the perspective of classroom performance to deepen knowledge of the texts…

This performance guide is the result of work conducted at the University of Virginia's National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute, 1989, on "Spanish Literature in Performance," in which 25 secondary school Spanish teachers studied Spanish texts from the perspective of classroom performance to deepen knowledge of the texts and…