ABSTRACT

This new book provides a clear and accessible guide on best practice to support teachers when using process drama in establishing creative learning partnerships with their students. It offers a detailed analysis and explores the roles of actor, director and playwright that the teacher must adopt in order to develop the ‘thinking on your feet’ skills and knowledge necessary to deliver a complete process drama experience.

Addressing the dynamic nature of process drama, it provides a clear and rigorous explanation of the theory of process drama and links it to practice. Drawing on a wide range of detailed examples from the authors’ international and cross-cultural practice, it demonstrates how an effective process drama operates in action.

Written to help practitioners and students produce powerful, artistic and educative experiences, chapters cover:

  • pedagogy and the improvised nature of the art form;
  • the structural framework and making shifts in the drama;
  • the role of actor, director, playwright and teacher;
  • monitoring emotional range;
  • progression and the importance of reflection;
  • the spiral of creative exchange and the complexities of co-creativity.

Putting Process Drama into Action will be an essential guide for students undertaking initial teacher training at primary level, in addition to those studying both Drama and English at secondary level. It will also prove to be essential reading for specialist and non-specialist teachers in the primary and secondary sectors who teach, or wish to teach, process drama.

chapter 1|8 pages

Process drama

Art form and pedagogy

chapter 2|12 pages

The improvised nature of the art form

chapter 4|10 pages

The head of the actor

Working within the drama

chapter 5|10 pages

The head of the director

The centrality of sign

chapter 6|10 pages

The head of the playwright

Developing the narrative, shaping and linking dramatic episodes

chapter 7|14 pages

The head of the teacher

Maintaining the learning

chapter 8|12 pages

The imperative of task

chapter 9|12 pages

Monitoring emotional range in drama

chapter 10|22 pages

The spiral of creative exchange