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Open Access Thesis

Keywords

Children's theater; Drama in education;

Abstract

Participation theatre provides a creative and valuable experience for the primary school child. The attitude and involvement of the classroom teacher can hinder or enhance this experience for the child. The purpose of this study is to describe: A. a five-step process by which a children's theatre company can insure a positive teacher attitude during performance and stimulate the teacher to provide creative follow-up activities in the classroom; and B. the implementation of this process by The Tiddly Winks Players during a pilot project in four Waterloo, Iowa, elementary schools in the spring semester of 1980. The components and goals of the five-step process 1. the preparation of an effective teacher-guide to provide the teacher with drama, art, and writing activities which are related to the content of the play and can be used in the classroom; 2. the presentation of a pre-performance teacher workshop to acquaint teachers with the company, its philosophy, and the play; 3. the presentation of a participation play for pupils and teachers to provide them with a shared creative experience; 4. the presentation of a post-performance teacher workshop to demonstrate the follow-up activities included in the teacher-guide, and 5. the presentation of classroom follow-up sessions by the actors to involve pupils in creative activities from the teacher-guide and stimulate teachers to provide further creative work for their pupils. The play selected for the pilot project, The Mirrorman, was directed by the writer and performed by four members of The Tiddly Winks Players. Two schools were designated as "pilot" schools and were recipients of all components of the five-step process. Two other schools, designated as "control" schools, were recipients of only the teacher-guide, the performance, and on-site follow-up sessions. The project was designed to ascertain whether teachers at the schools where all five components were provided were more encouraged to use the creative drama and related arts in the teacher-guide than teachers who were provided with only three components of the process. The effectiveness of the pilot project was assessed by means of a questionnaire which was sent to each participating teacher in order to determine the success of various components of the five-step process. The results of this survey indicated that teachers who participated in the pilot project became more interested in participation theatre and its value for their pupils and that over 90% of the teachers from the pilot schools were convinced that creative drama and related arts activities should be used in the classroom. The Appendices include, a) the teacher-guide, b) the cover letters and teacher questionnaire, and c) a compilation of the survey results.

Year of Submission

1980

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Department of Speech

First Advisor

F. Scott Regan

Second Advisor

William Waack

Comments

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Date Original

1980

Object Description

1 PDF file (161 leaves)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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