Drama (Strategies for Teaching and Learning Professional Library)

By Paul G. Heller

"Eeeeck, drama, yikes, it's so much work, it's so noisy and exhausting, and disorganized. Couldn't I just avoid it? Nope. It's here already. It's entered your classroom. It's inside your students. It... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1571100504
• ISBN13: 9781571100504
• Release Date: November 1996
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.52 lbs.
• Dimensions: 10.9" x 0.3" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Drama as a Way of Knowing Review

This book was very useful in how to incorporate drama into your classrooms. It is very clear cut and easy to follow. Highly recommended, especially for new teachers.

Good introduction

This isn't a great book about using drama in the classroom, but it's probably the best I have found to introduce the concept. As an actor and a teacher I have never had a problem employing dramatic techniques in the classroom, but this book was helpful even to me. An overview of Pantomime, Improvisation and Reading & Writing Scenes is provided. There is also a general overview of the Dramatic Arts and advice on how to stage your classroom production as a real presentation.The chapters are kept short, with lots of additional text boxes. These boxes contain "Notes from the teacher" to give real-world examples of the techniques being described. Throughout the book, more than just descriptions are given. Stories of the techniques in use are very helpful in guiding the teacher to design activities for his classroom. While this book did seem to focus on upper-elementary level activities, they could all be easily adapted to fit most any age level.Dramatic play is very important for children. Preschoolers learn through their play and any age group can learn by using their imagination. The activities outlined in this book will cause children to not only show their knowledge of a subject, but to construct it into a new medium. This extra thinking will help to solidify it in their minds. Because they will have the chance to interact with it they can fully understand how a flower bud opens, or what it was like to hide form the conscripts during the Civil War. Dramatic play is an invaluable tool in the classroom and this book's aim is to introduce it to your classroom.Why 4 stars?:Heller keeps his chapters short and peppered with illustrations of his techniques in use. There is so much that can be added to a classroom environment through the use of dramatic play as a teaching tool.

Excellent for beginner or expert

If you are a teacher or will become one, YOU NEED THIS BOOK! I have used this book as a text for some of my drama in education courses. It is very clear and concise, even for folks who don't know drama "lingo." I appreciate his brevity, which keeps the book's focus clear, but he is also complete and brings up points that can be explored and discussed. I also appreciated his "notes from the field sections, which detail how actual teachers have used drama in the classroom. This is not a ground breaking book, but it is the most accessible book for drama in the classroom that I have come across.