Teaching With and Through Drama

I thought it was refreshing and fun to participate in our drama presentations this past Monday. I am very excited to implement curriculum with drama in my future classrooms. I felt like by using this creative art in lessons, it kept students engaged and focused.
I plan on using drama in a variety of ways in the classroom. I think by having students pretend to be reporters or interviewers while they interact with other students is a great way for me to assess their comprehension of presented material. I feel like when we engage our students with these types of activities, they learn by reviewing important lessons previously learned which will lead to more long term memory of what they have been taught. I think I will mostly use the types of dramatic integration that include all or many of the students. This way if there are more shy students, they can feel safe by participating in groups. I particularly enjoyed the lesson where there were 4 groups who represented different locations in Utah, and then reporters asked them about the area, which would require the students to use former intruction to answer. They could work as a team to recall what they had learned. Then they were able to role play as they reported.
I think drama can be integrated into many curriculum areas. Students tend to be very fond of use of drama and other arts areas in their educational experiences. For this reason, they will naturally be more likely to maintain instruction.