Drama & Literacy A Worthwhile Partnership for Both Teachers and Students

What is literacy? Dictionary.com defines literacy as reading and writing skills. Many state standards take this a step further and include speaking and listening skills in this definition.

How DOES the use of dramatic activities help students improve literacy skills?

“Dramatic activities are crucial to early literacy development because children can be involved in reading and writing as a holistic and meaningful communication process. In addition, researchers have discovered that the mental requirements for understanding drama are similar to those for reading. ” -- Students are ACTIVELY ENGAGED in the text (so it’s no longer just marks on a page)

Dramatic activities help students grasp the concept of plot structure. Exposition-----Rising Action-----Climax----Denoument-----Resolution

Dramatizing literature helps students relate the material in the texts to their own lives.

The inherent in dramatic activities helps students to make spontaneous & creative choices in speaking & writing. improvisation

Multiple Intelligence Theory Howard Gardner’s theory states that all people possess eight separate areas of intelligence. However, most people show pronounced strengths in a few of these areas and may exhibit weaknesses in others. Traditional schools (including literacy activities) emphasis linguistic and logical intelligences. Dramatic activities allow students to access these areas through other intelligences, such as interpersonal and kinesthetic.

Vocabulary Skills Drama helps children explore the ways words can sound. Drama helps children explore the emotions inherent in words. Together, the sounds and emotions of new words (and using words ACTIVELY) will help students RETAIN the meanings.

Social Skills Students work together to devise scenes or to enact an imagined world through process drama. This helps them develop skills like teamwork and compromise. They also learn to depend on and trust each other, which is useful in other subjects and in the real world.

Perspective & Empathy Taking on a role helps students learn about the concepts of perspective or point-of-view, both of which are essential for understanding character motivation in literature.

But Can I Do It? “Although I do not suggest that special courses in creative drama are unnecessary to its practice, I believe that the average classroom teacher, because of preparation and experience, is better equipped to teach it than he or she may realize. The reason? Drama does not require mastery of the kinds of technical skills that are required for the teaching of music, dance, or the visual arts. Drama does, however, demand sensitivity to and a knowledge of children, the goals and principles of education, and some child psychology—things the classroom teacher already possesses… Skill comes with experience.” --Nellie McCaslin, Creative Drama in the Classroom & Beyond p. 19

Suggested Reading McCaslin, Nellie. Creative Drama in the Classroom and Beyond. New York: Longman, Cornett, Barbara. Creating Meaning Through Literacy and the Arts. Want to learn more about drama & literacy???