By crafting a dramatic script about struggling high school readers that I then shared with real students in my Reading classes, I applied Arts-based education research (ABER) methods. Through the writing, presentation, collection, and reflection on student feedback, as well as during the script rewriting process, I was allowed to engage in a…

An article on scripted drama might seem an unlikely choice for an edition devoted to getting students talking. Surely the point about a script is that the words used are chosen and prescribed by others. However, the examples presented here by Helen Snelson, Ruth Lingard and Kate Brennan demonstrate how effectively a well-crafted script can serve…

Because of difficult academic vocabulary and ambiguous explanations of many concepts, science texts are hard for students to read and understand. To become skilled readers of content material, students need to learn the meanings of the academic science vocabulary. They must also be able to understand the concepts presented in the textbook.…

Explores the effectiveness of using television and video to motivate student writing. Describes how, following a series of motivational and brainstorming sessions using television, video, and popular literature, 23 fifth-grade students wrote and videotaped dramatizations of short "teaser" scripts in cooperative groups. Notes that these…