Designed to help students respond in a positive way to poetry, poetry theater integrates dramatic technique with various aspects of reading, writing, analyzing, and reciting poetry. Poetry theater presentations require approximately five class periods to complete, allowing 45 minutes per class. The first class period should be devoted to choral…

The paper describes three creative and performing arts projects for handicapped persons: the production of a Shakespearean play using institutionalized mentally retarded adults; poetry writing with blind, deaf, physically handicapped and mentally retarded persons; and water ballet with mentally retarded adults. (CL)

The (CBS Radio) Columbia Workshop, formed in 1936, encouraged the writing and production of creative, non-traditional radio drama such as Archibald MacLeish's verse play "The Fall of the City," which aired on April 11, 1937. MacLeish considered radio the ideal medium for poetry because it offers only aural stimuli without competition…

Composing oral poems and storytelling are two exercises that speech teachers can use in oral interpretation courses. Conducting the oral poetry exercise early in an introductory interpretation course allows students to become acquainted with each other and to encourage each other while sharing something of themselves with the entire class. This…

Oral interpretation facilitates the learning processes of adolescents by making the presentation of subject matter more interesting and meaningful to them, helping them feel involved, and providing them with an opportunity to perceive literature in action. Narrative literature is a good place to begin oral interpretation activities, since…

Inspired by the Broadway musical "Cats" and by T. S. Eliot's collection of poems, "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats," this language arts teaching unit for seventh grade includes a variety of activities using the poems and musical as focal points. Activity types include the following: (1) reading, listening, and singing…