This remarkable book includes more than one hundred games and drama activities, all with a clear learning focus. The activities use themes as a springboard for easy drama through games, movement, tableau, role playing, improvisation, readers theatre, choral speaking, and much more. Teachers will find opportunities to explore literary genres that include the picture book, novel, rhyme, folktale, poem, script, and photograph. New drama structures look at relevant topics that range from personal narrative and the immigrant experience to bullying and building a community. This comprehensive approach to drama illustrates how teachers can reach each learner in the classroom.

In this totally revised 4th edition, Larry Swartz digs deeply into the riches of the past three books and considers the experiences of language arts teachers who have used all three versions for almost three decades. Full of engaging new ideas, the book includes many new sources and carefully chosen strategies for exploring challenging issues with students, including identity, poverty, diversity, bullying, and immigration. Literary sources are at the root of this amazing book, and encompass picture books, novels, poetry, scripts, and photographs. Compelling strategies throughout the book are designed to enrich interactive possibilities amongst learners in the language arts classroom. By reading, writing, and talking both in and out of role, students can develop and share their responses, stories, and ideas. A bestselling classroom resource for almost thirty years, Dramathemes is an ideal book for teachers who want to put drama into literacy programs, and literacy into drama programs.

The book Indian English Drama: Themes & Techniques is a volume of research articles on contemporary Indian dramatists and their works starting from Rabindranath Tagore to nearly all present generation of dramatists like Girish Karnad, Vijay Tendulkar, Mahesh Dattani, Badal Sirkar, Habib Tanvir, Utpal Dutt, Mahasweta Devi, Usha Ganguli, Manjula Padmanabhan, Mahesh Elkunchwar and Manoj Mitra. The book will be helpful in giving critical insight to understand the art and vision of contemporary Indian dramatists both from thematic and technical points of view. The introductory chapter of the book is very resourceful to understand the growth and development of Indian English drama. Authors have presented their critical viewpoints on almost every aspect of dramatic arts, themes and techniques pertaining to Indian playwrights and their works. The book will give many ground breaking concepts and ideas on Indian English drama and is useful for both researchers and learners.

This book "offers a comprehensive outline of improvisation and interpretation strategies that teachers can incorporate in classroom instruction."--Page 4 of cover.

" Part food for thought, part instruction manual, part stories and scripts to explore, and part encouragement to recharge, this practical book offers a comprehensive approach to using role play and discussion to build meaningful language experiences. It explores issues around storytelling, silent speech, writing, and imagination and shows teachers how to be effective observers and support the deeper meaning that comes from working inside and outside the text. This authoritative resource is full of simple strategies and texts that have been chosen for their ability to engage students, get them out of their chairs, and let them learn actively and socially. The strategies begin with simple games, and evolve into more complex learning opportunities. The model texts give teachers a great place to start, and anecdotes from real classrooms put them into context. These classroom glimpses illustrate the real power that students can bring to their learning as they share within groups and find ways to involve their audience."--Publisher.

This practical book offers a comprehensive approach to teaching literacy that puts students at the centre of the learning process.

How Drama Activates Learning: Contemporary Research and Practice draws together leaders in drama education and applied theatre from across the globe, including authors from Europe, North America and Australasia. It explores how learning can be activated when drama pedagogies and philosophies are applied across diverse contexts and for varied purposes. The areas explored include: · history · literacy, oracy and listening · health and human relationships education · science · democracy, social justice and global citizenship education · bullying and conflict management · criticality · digital technologies · additional language learning Drawing on a range of theoretical perspectives, the contributors present case studies of drama and applied theatre work in school and community settings, providing rich descriptions of practice accompanied by detailed analysis underpinned by the theoretical perspectives of key thinkers from both within and beyond the field of drama.

This era of “fake” news demands a deeper curriculum that questions inconsistencies of facts and opinions in various texts and images. This timely revision of a ground-breaking book offers opportunities for students to connect with social justice issues through inventive language exploration and the active examination of all forms of media. It encourages teachers to evaluate their core teaching beliefs and recognize the realities of their students’ lives for a richer understanding of our complex world. A glossary of more than fifty strategies, along with reproducible pages for easy classroom use, complement this essential resource.

Everyone talks about "best practice" teaching--but what does it actually look like in the classroom? How do working teachers translate complex curriculum standards into simple, workable classroom structures that embody exemplary instruction--and still let kids find joy in learning?In Teaching the Best Practice Way, Harvey Daniels and Marilyn Bizar present seven basic teaching structures that make classrooms more active, experiential, collaborative, democratic, and cognitive, while simultaneously meeting "best practice" standards across subject areas and throughout the grades. Each section begins with an essay outlining one key method, providing its historical background and research results, and then describing the structure's vital features. Next, several teachers representing different grade levels and school communities explain how they adopted the basic model, adapted it to their students' needs, and made it their own.Fully updating and expanding Methods that Matter (Stenhouse, 1998), Teaching the Best Practice Way adds the stories of twenty more celebrated teachers, including James Beane, Donna Ogle, Franki Sibberson, and others from around the country. A brand-new chapter focuses on reading as thinking, detailing the ways teachers can nurture strategic readers--readers who not only deeply understand the printed materials they encounter in school, but who also bring these cognitive strategies to their "reading" of film, art, music, and their experience of the world. The book also shares new research studies that validate the principles and activities of best practice teaching, along with lists of recommended materials that support each of the seven methods.Unique in the field, Teaching the Best Practice Way speaks to all teachers, K-12, with stories, examples, and practical classroom materials for the teachers of all children. This is the book for teachers, schools, and districts that believe the big ideas about teaching really do cross all grade levels and subject areas. Education professors will also find this an ideal resource for use in methods courses.

As the education community struggles with literacy achievement, skillful leadership has emerged as a distinguishing feature of successful schools. Since The Literacy Principal was first published, it has helped shape the discussion around accountability and successful practices that support both teachers and students. This revised and expanded second edition challenges principals to become even more involved in championing literacy in their schools. It examines the role of school leaders at both the elementary and secondary levels. Commentaries from teachers, principals, and consultants who have been involved in developing strong school-wide and district-wide literacy programs are included to demonstrate the strides that many schools have made in the last few years. The increasingly important role of school literacy coaches and mentoring teams are presented as models of the power of cooperative approaches to successful literacy programs. David Booth and Jennifer Rowsell offer an overview of the most successful strategies for creating a support network that will nurture and build a powerful reading environment. They help administrators: introduce and support cooperative approaches to literacy that involve coaches and mentoring teams; understand exemplary reading and writing programs and school-wide strategies for promoting literacy growth among students; demonstrate a commitment to literacy among teachers, parents, students, and the community; appreciate the many forms of assessment and evaluation including intervention programs for improving student performance. Rooted in the latest research and real-world experience, this new edition provides tried-and-true frameworks that principals can use in their quest to create schools where literacy thrives.