Product Review

Bringing creative drama activities into the classroom reaches across all disciplines, creating opportunities for hands-on, experiential learning. Middle school students especially have lots of energy and are learning to express their individuality. They need to try out new ideas, explore, and interact. The many exercises in this book can help any teacher, even one with no acting experience, create a safe zone in their classroom where students can take risks, make mistakes and learn from them, building both confidence and cooperation, as well as speaking and listening skills. Games are organized into several categories: Body Exercises, Voice Exercises, Getting to Know Each Other, Improvisation, Public Speaking, Poetry for Performance, and Plays and Scenes. A glossary of drama terms at the back of the book helps even the most beginning teacher add drama as a powerful tool to his or her bag of tricks.