A speech-language pathologist and former primary teacher who is now a researcher conducting action research with kindergarten teachers in northern rural Canadian classrooms collaborate in an analysis of one teacher's interactions with her students in a dramatic play center. We use three principles to show how the teacher supports children's…

This study aims to analyze pre-service teachers' narrations about important teaching experiences, which mostly affected them and which they mostly enjoyed. In the present study, a qualitative research was used. The study was carried out with 214 pre-service teachers in Mugla, Turkey who wrote short memoirs on learning experiences as prompted by a…

This study explores the effectiveness and challenges of a collaborative drama project conducted in a beginner-level Japanese language university class. The project had two main objectives: firstly, it encouraged students to focus on linguistic elements during the process of writing, examining and editing the scenario, and to embed it in an…

This article describes teachers' collaborative inquiry into the pretend "bad guy" play of 12 children in a university laboratory preschool classroom in the northeastern United States. The article describes the inquiry process and includes details and documentation of children's decisions, actions, and interactions related to the bad guy…

This paper presents data from a study examining the use of Theatre of the Oppressed as a critical pedagogy and research method for exploring notions of identity, belonging, and culture with francophone secondary students (Schroeter, 2009). It describes the process whereby Black African-Canadian students with refugee backgrounds identified their…

In this article, the author argues that storytelling is centrally important to education research. The proliferation of narrative methodologies, albeit significant and innovative in the evolution of qualitative studies in education, has, nonetheless, not been accompanied by a theoretical body that has captured the complexities--ethical and…

This paper describes a high school theatre program's project in which Anna Deavere Smith's documentary theatre work serves as the foundation for play-building for students. Research in theatre arts supports the use of play-building as a way to explore major themes of relevance to students. However, there is little research addressing documentary…

The Early Learning Guidelines: Nebraska's Birth to Five Learning and Development Standards (hereafter referred to as the Guidelines) is a resource to provide information about young children's learning and development. The Guidelines are intended to assist adults in planning and providing meaningful learning experiences and environments for…

Australia holds some of the most unique, diverse and vulnerable ecosystems in the world, ranging from marine, coral reefs, to the arid and semi-arid outback, to tropical rainforests. Young children's perceptions of, and attitudes to their environment carry with them into adulthood, determining their capacity to learn about and interact with their…

The student dramatic performance is an effective way for undergraduates to learn biblical studies. In this article I will give an example of a dramatic performance assignment that I developed over a number of courses and used most recently and most successfully in an undergraduate course in the Hebrew Bible at a small liberal arts college in the…

One way of understanding the impact of the (re)emergence of a performance approach to teaching Shakespeare's plays that was, in part, initiated by the "Shakespeare Set Free" program and the books its creators composed is to say that for many teachers their work initiated the process of making performance activities central in English classrooms.…

The authors have worked together since 1986, though not always in the same building, and not always in the same area or even zip code. Over the years their titles have changed, as well as their employers, not to mention their roles and responsibilities. But there is no getting around the fact that when asked what has been keeping either one of…

This article presents and summarizes recent resources related to pretend play in the early childhood classroom. These include "Contemporary Perspectives on Play in Early Childhood Education" by Olivia N. Sarachoe and Bernard Spodek; "Dramatic Play: Bring It Back" by Tammy Benson; and "The Importance of Being Playful" by Elena Bodrova and Deborah…

This article arose out of my involvement in an undergraduate drama module at the School of Education, University of KwaZulu-Natal, where I made use of workshop theatre methodologies to explore how second-year drama students construct knowledge and develop sociocultural understandings of critical issues in society. The workshop theatre project…

In this article, the author shares her experience in setting up a unique imitative play through which children try on roles and imitate "grown-up" activities, thereby developing feelings of confidence and competence. As children play, they gain communication and negotiation skills; if conflicts arise, they engage in creative problem solving.…