Drama in the Middle Level Classroom: Bringing Content to Life

Abstract

Although instruction can unfold in a myriad of ways, as middle level teachers, we tend to limit our stu dents to only a few forms of expressions to demonstrate their grasp of content. In most middle level classrooms, students usually study a social studies lesson, a scientific phe nomena, or an adolescent novel by reading a textbook, writing a paper, or discussing it in class. Although use of reading, writing, or discussion to instruct students is relevant, other forms of instruction remain largely untapped. Student dramatizations can provide teachers with a promising alternative for instructing students. Drama is a natural approach to content instruction for middle level students. Learning involves construc tive activity that changes perspective through reflection and interaction with oth ers (Short & Burke, 1991). Young adoles cents, in particular, want to be actively involved in learning activities and to be per sonally connected to the educational process (Smith & Johnson, 1993). Atwell (1987) encourages us to incorporate these realities of early adolescence into our instructional design. Drama does this by engaging stu dents in social learning contexts where they are required to think, talk, manipulate con crete materials, and share viewpoints in order to arrive at decisions (Siks, 1983). Through drama, students explore both factual knowledge and content concepts while trying on social experiences (Smith & Herring, 1993). Drama's powerful force in content learning comes from its potential to place learners in a variety of contexts—in sit uations that generate forms of thought, feel ing, and language beyond those usually gen erated in traditional instructional settings (Edmiston, 1991). Heathcote (cited in Johnson & O'Neill, 1984) states that drama puts students into other people's shoes by using personal experience to help them understand other points of view while con fronting situations that may change them because of the issues and challenges they face in the dramatic playing. Dramatizations can be integrated into content instruction a number of ways. However, the use of drama raises many questions. What does a teacher need to know about drama to use it in the class