ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the myriad of ways that creative movement and theater can be integrated with literacy to impact learning. Research has shown that using drama supports students' oral language development, helps students who are EL gain English proficiency, and all students increase their literacy skills. Ideas shared include how using drama and movement helps teachers use a multimodal approach to instruction, which improves student outcomes. The concept of multiliteracies is discussed which provides a wider understanding of the notion of literacy, beyond reading, writing, and numeracy, to communicate in our highly globalized and increasingly visual and digital reality of the 21st century. This expanded understanding provides an avenue for dance, gesture, visuals, and theater, to be considered forms of literacy and ways for our students to communicate their understandings of content. This chapter provides many concrete ideas for integrating movement and theater with literacy lessons such as staging a folktale and dramatizing a scene from a read aloud. Lessons plans at the end of the chapter include verb dance, adverb walk, and poetry in motion.
