Putting it Together: Musical Theater and Literacy for Children with Visual Impairments

Abstract

Musical theater integrated into the curriculum for students with visual impairments is a unique and powerful vehicle for learning. The very essence of musical theater showcases storytelling through dialogue, as well as depicting emotion in music, dance, and human interaction. Through the use of musical theater, students with visual impairments can read a script or lyrics from a song, listen to music that conveys emotion, interact with classmates in role-playing activities, and learn from a unique and creative point of view. Using this multisensory approach for instruction creates a learning environment that connects students with each other and generates understanding and functional skill building through their interactions with the material. VSA, the international organization on arts and disability (previously known as Very Special Arts), affirms that the arts are often utilized to help students with disabilities improve their academic performance because of the engaging and interactive nature of artistic material (2008). Literacy lessons that incorporate musical theater components can give students with visual impairments imaginative ways of interpreting stories through a combination of visual, tactual, auditory, and kinesthetic channels to convey meaning. When incorporated with storytelling, movement, and functional skills, musical theater seamlessly integrates academic requirements with many of the concepts from the expanded core curriculum (ECC). Whether attending a live production or watching a movie musical in the classroom, students can learn about storytelling and character development through comical character interchange, rousing chorus numbers, or the swell of emotion from a song. Although watching musical theater in the school setting creates opportunities to teach both academic and functional skills, attending a live theatrical production can also reinforce an additional combination of skills in as many as seven of the nine areas of the ECC (including social interaction, orientation and mobility, sensory efficiency, and recreation and leisure skills). ECC skills that must be planned and deliberately taught can be part of learning about attending the theater (Sapp & Hatlen, 2010, p. 340). Furthermore, classroom discussion about attending live theater also allows students the opportunity to learn about something they might not otherwise have been exposed to. CREATING LESSONS IN MUSICAL THEATER An ideal way to introduce a class to musical theater is to incorporate fundamental elements of music, song, and theatrical terminology as a component of a literacy lesson. Selecting books written specifically about the theater for the lesson is one such way to acquaint students with some of these fundamentals. Harriet Ziefert's Lights on Broadway: A Theatrical Tour from A to Z (2009) is written for a young audience, yet the content is appropriate for all ages because of its concise theatrical anecdotes and information from Broadway's theater professionals. Part of the visual appreciation of a performance is seeing actors moving on stage to illustrate a point. In order to better explain to students with visual impairments how or why actors move onstage, lessons illustrating movement terms like upstage or stage left should be included in the unit. Putting such theatrical terms into practice by asking students to physically move upstage or stage left is a way to modify an academic-based lesson of reading and writing into one that also includes elements of the ECC. Introducing students to the importance of song in musical theater can unlock an entirely new way for teachers and students to engage in academic subjects. Students learn that music and song serve an important element in storytelling: They immediately set the tone of a character's feelings and the mood of a scene in a way that lighting or words alone cannot do. Students with visual impairments, therefore, learn that it is important that they pay attention to the songs and incidental music when watching musicals. …