A play written for young audiences about recycling and environmental quality is provided. The characters are a young forest dragon, a man, a wizard, and a narrator and are played by puppets. Directions for making the costumes, the wizard's castle, and the dragon's cave are included. (KR)

Suggests that teachers can enliven their world history classroom through debates, plays, improvisations, readings, and drama. Describes how to use drama to enhance the study of the ordinary citizen of the Napoleonic era. (DB)

The Afrocentric theories of Molefi Kete Asante are examined as they relate to drama. It is argued that the fundamental principle in understanding African-American drama rests on viewing it as a means of total creation deriving power from the interaction of the self, the community, and the cosmos. (SLD)

A high-school English teacher educated his students (military dependents) about the Vietnam War by helping them discover their own parents' role and the war's effects on their lives. After compiling research and interview data, students presented scenes depicting what people brought to the Vietnam War Memorial. (MLH)

Although the film and play "Inherit the Wind" is sometimes thought to be an accurate depiction of the Scopes Trial, there are many major inaccuracies. Summarizes the major differences between what is portrayed in "Inherit the Wind" and what happened in Dayton, Tennessee in 1925 at John Scopes's trial. (WRM)

Contends that one way of improving student understanding of abstract ideas in the physical sciences is to use active, creative approaches in teaching such as drama. Describes three dramatic improvisations used by undergraduate elementary teacher trainees. Finds that drama helped the teachers explain abstract ideas and that the teachers valued this…

Presents five articles on using creative dramatics in early childhood education: (1) "Drama: A Rehearsal for Life" (Julia Gabriel); (2) "Fairy Tales Enhance Imagination and Creative Thinking" (Olga Sidlovskaya); (3) "Starting with a Story" (Ruth Stotter); (4) "Using Creative Dramatics to Include All…

Interviews a teacher in Colorado about his role as teacher-advisor to a group of students who presented a problem and a solution in a 15-minute presentation that involved some drama. The students' piece was entitled "Saving the Fish in the World's Ocean". Students worked through three approaches to the problem: (1) moral suasion; (2)…

As part of an ongoing research program, the authors investigated the use of single-voiced narration and multi-voiced characterizations/monologues in a formative evaluation study of an instructional lesson on information processing. That lesson employed a design based on the use of content-related metaphors and a metaphorical graphical user…

Creativity and the creative arts are important to the portrayal of human experiences through a myriad of forms, including visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and written expression. While these forms of creative expression vary within and across cultural groups, a unifying element embedded in creative works seems to prevail through a continuous search…

In this article, the author describes how a mini-unit on the Bard provided a positive introduction to Shakespeare for her students and left them well-prepared to tackle the Shakespeare plays they would encounter in their high school curriculum. Not only did the students get a chance to see live performances, they were also given a guide to keep,…

Alternately referred to as historical role-playing, dramatic improvisation, sociodrama, or first-person characterization, role playing is a teaching strategy that often uses official accounts, personal narratives, and diaries to recreate a particular time period, specific event, or breathe life into a character from history. Historical…

In this article, the authors help teachers see below the surface so that play can be used to help children's learning and communication. A closer and deeper look at play can reveal children's learning of concept development, communication, budding social relationships, and very specific literacy skills. The authors state, that viewing play not…

Groups in high schools that use creative techniques help adolescents express their emotions appropriately, behave differently, and gain insight into themselves and others. This article looks at seven different creative arts media--music, movement, visual art, literature, drama, play, and humor--and offers examples of how they can be used in groups…

This essay uses the concept of the constellation to characterize the relations among interdisciplinarity, cultural memory, and comparative literature. To do so entails: (a) reviewing the paradoxical interdisciplinarity of comparative literature, (b) tracing its establishment at a liberal arts college (Bryn Mawr College, USA), and (c) describing a…