Table of Contents

Introduction......................................................................................................................................2

Using drama in the classroom teaching...........................................................................................3

Resources.........................................................................................................................................6
Introduction
Drama is the act of using the imagination to become someone or something other than yourself.
It can take one any place to any period of time. It is only limited by the imagination, the
participants’ fear of risking, or the leader or teacher’s set limitations. Richard Courtney, a
professional in the area of drama in education defines drama as, “The human process whereby
imaginative thought becomes action, drama is based on internal empathy and identification, and
leads to external impersonation” (vii). Courtney believes also that “life is a drama.”

Humans are always acting and improvising. When we meet someone for the first time, we
improvise our conversation. Life has no script written for us, however, we can use role-play to
practice the anticipated situation.

In their book, Imagining to Learn, Jeffrey Wilhelm and Brian Edmiston define drama simply as,
“wondering, ‘What if…?’ and then interacting with others in a drama world as if that imagined
reality was actual”. Through looking at these definitions of drama, one can see the impact it
could have in the classroom. “Asking ‘What if…?’ is not an optional question in the curriculum
imagining possibilities is the core of understanding other people, other times, and other places”.
“Watching children working in drama provides fascinating insights into the richness of their
imaginations, the skill with which they negotiate with one another, their present level of critical
thinking, and the sophistication of the language they use”. Gavin Bolton calls the form of drama
used to teach in the classroom, “dramatic playing.” “Dramatic playing is characterized by a high
degree of spontaneity as teacher and students work to create a fictional world in which they
assume roles to explore issues that are of concern to them” (Verriour 9). Most professionals in
the area of drama in education would define drama very correspondingly. They would all agree
that drama is the act of participants joining in an imagined world and taking roles of others. By
doing so, students are able to learn through other perspectives and act as one would in the
imagined situation. Drama, although not new to humans has had an integral impact on history
and those who lived through it..
Using drama in the classroom teaching

Research indicates that using drama in the classroom as a means of teaching helps students learn
academically, socially, and developmentally. “The use of drama as a tool for teaching is not
new. Historically, both drama and theatre have long been recognized as potent means of
education and indoctrination. The ways they are used today, however, are new, and they differ
in a number of respects from the ways they have been used in the past” (McCaslin 271). Arts
advocates and educators have recently started to explore the use of drama as an integrated way of
learning the curriculum.

I strongly believe that the arts should be employed in every classroom. It can reach students who
otherwise couldn’t be reached, and challenge students who have already grasped the concepts.
Drama provides a fun means of learning. It brings the affective back into the classroom, an
institute where emotions and learning are categorically divided. Recent brain research proves
that emotions are linked with learning. When we connect to the concept emotionally, we will
have a better understanding of it. When we teach using the arts we are linking prior experiences
with new stimuli. Teaching using drama brings emotion and learning together.

Most importantly of all, using drama to teach in the elementary classroom gets students involved
and gives them the power to have a key role in their education. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, who wrote
the article, “Drama is Imagining to Learn: Inquiry, Ethics, and Integration through Drama,”
writes, “Through drama, students became a part of the learning process rather than mere
observers or inactive receptacles of the rich experience of learning; in this way, their learning
was deeper, more sustained, and infinitely more complex”. This paper will demonstrate the
validity of using drama to teach students and the elementary curriculum. Through research of
the arts, drama in particular, and a close look at how people learn, one can attest that teaching
using drama can enrich the classroom environment.

How to Use Drama in the Classroom

Putting on plays for an audience is not what is meant by using drama in the classroom. The goal
is not to teach acting and performance skills. The goal is to teach the core curricular areas using
drama. Betty Jane Wagner, an internationally recognized authority on composition instruction
and the educational uses of drama, states of the purpose of role play, “The role playing is
improvisational, not scripted and memorized to present a performance for an audience. The
emphasis is on drama as an intentional teaching strategy to enhance learning in a particular
curricular area”. There are many ways in which drama can be integrated into the elementary
classroom. Drama can be a way to teach all subject areas. Language arts, social studies, and
science are subject areas, which are very successful in using drama. “It is particularly effective
in making a historical event come alive for students,” says Wagner (5).

A real life example seems to be the best way to illustrate how drama can be used in the
classroom. When I student taught a second grade class last year, one of the required benchmarks
to meet was to teach about Thanksgiving. Instead of telling the students about Thanksgiving, I
let them be the teachers. I assigned them each to a group, which would cover a specific topic of
Thanksgiving. (Mayflower, Pilgrims, Native Americans, feast) I told the class that their group
was to choose some way to teach the class about their topic. Without influencing their decisions,
I noticed that every one of the groups chose to use role play to teach their classmates. It was an
immediate, unanimous decision made by all groups to use drama to teach the class.

This told me that children most definitely love using drama to learn. On the day they were to
teach, it was amazing to see the students in role. They really imagined themselves back in time
to the first Thanksgiving. Students came dressed to look their parts. Many of them did extra
research on their own to learn what their Pilgrim role would look and act like. While each group
went in front of the room to teach, the class was intensely involved in the learning. Since this
experience those second graders are experts on Thanksgiving. This class voluntarily went above
and beyond their given requirements to learn. This is just one example of how drama was used as
a method of teaching in the elementary classroom. Role-play can be a very powerful teaching
tool. This and different aspects of drama can be used to teach all the curriculum areas. Holly
Giffin, Ph.D. writes, “In the field of education there is tension between the growing concern that
children meet external, culturally-approved standards, and the growing body of research and
theory suggesting that learning is far more complex and individualized than the standard-
makers ever thought”. Educators must take this into consideration when teaching children.
Drama is a teaching method, which would allow students to explore the curriculum using several
of Gardner’s multiple intelligences.

Students are fully involved in learning with drama. They are immersed into the subject. Their
bodies, minds, and emotions are extremely active when they become engrossed in the drama. A
common misconception is that the brain is like a storage unit, which can store and retrieve
information at any given time; the brain is an exceptionally complex system of making
connections and creating new information. “The human brain is the most complex system on
earth, yet it is too often used in schools primarily as a simple device for storage and retrieval of
information”. Teachers who orally lecture students, loading them with facts and figures, and
then test them on what they remember, are not teaching with the brain in mind.

During drama activities, the student’s schema or prior knowledge of the subject is activated to
really come to a complete understanding. Essentially, when we learn, we are synthesizing. We
are merging our prior knowledge with the fresh information and creating something new in our
minds. “Each brain is unique. Genetic and environmental factors influence learning and the
connections between cells are created by an individual’s unique experiences”.

Drama is such a great way of synthesizing because of how involved the participants must be.
They must recall their schema prior to the drama and use their new knowledge to create the
drama. When the drama is over, there is room for reflection. Reflection is often a step that is
overlooked in traditional teaching methods. “Students do not just act in drama they also reflect
on the meanings of actions as they consider the consequences for different people. Reflection is
dialogic when the students evaluate actions from the point of view of a person affected”.

Resources
Chapman, Carolyn. “If the Shoe Fits…How to Develop Multiple Intelligences in the
Classroom.”

Courtney, Richard. Dramatic Curriculum. London: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd., 1980.

Darby, Jaye T., and James S. Catterall. “The fourth r: The arts and learning.” Teachers College
Record. V.96, n.2. 1994: 299-328.

Dickinson, Dee. “Learning Through the Arts.” New Horizons for Learning. Seattle: New
Horizons for Learning, 2002.
Edmiston, Brian, and Jeffrey D. Wilhelm. Imagining To Learn: Inquiry, Ethics, and Integration
Through Drama. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1998.

Feden, Preston, and Robert Vogel. “How the Human Brain Learns is the Basis for New
Teaching.” January 7, 2003. <http://www.lasalle.edu/univcomm/2003/cognitive.htm>

Iannone, Ron. “Imagination: The missing link in curriculum and teaching.” Education. V.122,
n. 2. 2001: 307-309.

Jensen, Eric. Teaching with the Brain in Mind. Virginia: Association for Supervision and
Curriculum Development, 1998.

Koste, V. Glasgow. Dramatic Play in Childhood: Rehearsal for Life. Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann, 1995.

Lawson, James, R. “Brain-Based Learning.” 2001.