Learning to Teach Drama: A Case Narrative Approach

This is a book for new teachers about putting drama education theory into practice and preparing for the contextual variables that lie ahead. It is the next-best thing to actual classroom experience, enabling readers to think through "What do I do if . . .?" scenarios and experience vicariously a broad range of teaching situations.

While there are many examples of teacher casebooks, Learning to Teach Drama is the first text written specifically for teachers of theatre/drama. Furthermore, these cases are written by novices, not experts, providing readers with authentic voices from the field. Eighteen case narratives are featured in all, representing the issues every beginning teacher faces: planning lessons, knowing students as individuals and as members of a group, establishing classroom climate, understanding the place of drama within the school community, and expecting the unexpected. These teachers also assist one another, comment on each others cases, and effectively create a learning community. In addition, special "Extensions" sections prepared by the editors encourage readers to go beyond each narrative and relate the situations to their own teaching.

Laura McCammon taught speech drama and English for fifteen years in Maryville, Tennessee. She is currently the Theatre Education Specialist at the University of Arizona in Tucson, where she teaches creative drama and secondary methods, and supervises student teachers.

Carole Miller is associate professor in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction, Faculty of Education, University of Victoria. Her primary area of research is the relationship of drama to learning across the curriculum. She is coauthor of Learning to Teach Drama (Heinemann, 2000).

Joe Norris is the Director of the School of Education at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia. He has been a faculty member at Washington State University, the University of Alberta, and the University of Lethbridge. He has taught courses in drama methods, theatre in education, drama as a way of knowing, curriculum theory, qualitative research, and arts-based approaches to educational research. He has served as the Theatre-in-Education Network Chair and Research Network Chair for the American Alliance for Theatre and Education and was the artistic director and a founding member of Mirror Theatre, a social issues focused touring theatre troupe.