This personal reflection looks at the benefits of using performance pedagogy in the Shakespeare classroom, both in terms of a general understanding of the period and a student's personal connection to the text. Though the essay acknowledges our profession's ongoing dialogue in this area, it mostly seeks to look at how a student may change once she…

To help maintain class interest in the important themes addressed in "Walden" and "The Duties of Civil Disobedience," a high school English teacher has presented a dramatic monologue as Henry David Thoreau to his students. After much library research, the teacher used some of the props characteristic of the author, such as a…

Discusses mime, masks, improvisation, body training, and choral dynamics as techniques for improving actors' body movements. (RD)

Relates students' favorite television characters to specific skill development, such as discussions in class, vocabulary development, critical thinking and evaluating occupations for future career guidance. (RK)

Describes an activity in which students selected a character from a play or novel and acted that role before the class. (SW)

Compares the classroom to the theatre and the teacher to an actor who assumes a role. Offers suggestions to use in developing both comparisons. (AEA)

This course guide for teachers is intended to help students use improvisational acting techniques in exploring problems that affect today's youth. Performance objectives are listed which include: (1) the application of procedures to follow in group problem solving to complete activities to improve concentration, and (2) the analysis of characters…

In introducing drama into the elementary classroom it is wise to start by having children portray that which they have experienced. First attempts should be short and simple with later attempts more complex and of longer duration. The first section of this bulletin offers numerous types of preliminary activities. The remainder of the booklet…

Examines the current practices and possibilities of using the teaching-in-role strategy (where the teacher takes on a fictional role for educational purposes) through a survey of professional youth theaters. Finds that, of 38 programs that responded, all indicated having an educational program with several characteristics compatible with…

This article describes how the second-graders of one school performed a first-person historical presentation using all of the presidents of the United States as their characters. In connection with Presidents' Day, students presented a one-minute overview of the president's life in first-person characterization including costumes. Rationale,…

Dynamic classroom role-playing for junior and senior high school classes in literature and acting is an essential ingredient in cultivating characterization and interpretation if a student is to learn the technical skills of performance. Although no simple classroom performance blueprint exists for predicting the degree of success a student…

This review of current uses of drama in the teaching of literature deals with drama that is "concerned with experience by the participants, irrespective of any function of communication to an audience." Chapters are devoted to (1) the British-influenced Dartmouth Seminar proposals emphasizing drama and oral language, (2) American…

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…

This publication is a compilation of information on "literacy theater," a process that involves the act of presenting a short, worst-case scenario that is followed by the actors staying in character for a dialogue with audience members. The guide defines literacy theater as being constructed to involve the interaction of two to five people, a…