Running head: READING 1

First-grade students learn and benefit through drama in various ways, including the

opportunity to practice teamwork and collaboration and to prepare students to role-play as actors

and audiences.

Drama allows students to communicate with their peers through teamwork activities that

enable them to build relationships. For example, before a lesson on Johnny Appleseed, a few

children composed a script. They created a script celebrating the pioneer nurseryman who

introduced apple trees to large parts of the American MidWest. Children were able to engage in

collaboration, teamwork, and participation, which helped enhance their curriculum learning

while building relationships with their peers. For example, when students compose the script,

they can bounce ideas off one another, allowing each student to share their perspective and

collaborate in active discussion. Drama will enable students from all backgrounds and cultures to

practice collaboration and acts of confidence and self-acceptance, which are “fundamental

elements of cooperation and teamwork” (Isenberg & Jalongo, 2018, p. 178).

Drama allows opportunities for students to gain the role of actors and audiences. When

students play a character, they have the chance to put themselves into another person’s

perspective, problems, and feelings. For example, after reading the book, Our Class Is A Family,

some students decided to role-play as a teacher, which allows them to have the responsibility to

think as a teacher would. The other half of the classes acted as the audience, which allowed them

to evaluate, observe, and critically think in the mind space as an audience member. Drama allows

students to each have a distinct responsibility and emerge themselves into another person’s

perspective.
READING RESPONSE 3 2

The main differences between informal, interpretive, and scripted drama are the level of

“spontaneity and child-centeredness” (Isenberg & Jalongo, 2018, p. 175).

Informal drama is when students engage in dramatic situations for themselves rather than

for an outside audience. Such as when young children will reenact a person or familiar event like

pretending to be a princess in a castle. There is no audience because the teacher is typically the

facilitator; however, informal drama does cover sociodramatic and dramatic play. School-age

children can participate in informal drama in situations such as taking the perspective and acting

a self-made script based on familiar circumstances.

Interpretive drama portrays “someone else’s ideas and words,” which stimulates

children’s oral language and reading awareness because they need to comprehend another’s ideas

to portray them dramatically (Isenberg & Jalongo, 2018, p. 175). I would be most comfortable

incorporating interpretive drama with the third-graders in my dual-language classroom. Students

can perform a book they are reading, All Our Welcome, and demonstrate their reading

comprehension through a dramatic performance. My lab teacher can then assess if her students

understand the purpose and main ideas of the book by asking them to convey their learning

through a reenactment.

Scripted drama is the “most structured form of drama, including a polished script

production before an audience in which children memorize lines, and someone directs” (Isenberg

& Jalongo, 2018, p. 175). Scripted drama is technique focused and is recommended for children

in fourth grade or above. Scripted drama is not typically suggested for early childhood education

students unless they have the freedom to produce their own script.