Drama at the Heart of English

This welcome and relevant book powerfully articulates and advocates for the place of drama 'at the heart of English' in secondary schools. The authors, all experts in the field, consider the political, historical and social dimensions of drama within English teaching drawing on a strong theoretical framework rooted in Vygotsky and grounded in everyday classroom pedagogies. The book traces the complex relationship between drama and English over time analysing specific policy shifts which shaped perspectives about the role of drama teaching within English. Then we move to the authors' theoretical framing for the development of their 'drama-in English pedagogy'. Classrooms come to life as they share approaches and examples from their own experience as teachers, teacher educators and researchers before closing with a persuasive mandate for drama in English and its potential for creative, joyful and intellectually stimulating classroom encounters between children and the texts they read. This is a must read book for all involved in English teaching. Jo McIntyre, Professor of Education, University of Nottingham At a time when applications to study English at higher level are falling and students report their dissatisfaction with their experience of studying it, comes this book to help teachers to show their students that literature is ultimately about human experience and that drama as a pedagogy is about engaging effectively with that experience to make it memorable and meaningful. but that helps to contextualise the problems we've encountered as a profession as we've struggled to match the ideological demands of politicians with the very human needs of our students. This book will help you to navigate that path and find a mode of resistance. Dr Debra Kidd, Teacher and Author There is no other book quite like this, to my knowledge: its breadth, depth, and intellectual rigour mark it out. Breadth: in its insistence on an expanded view of English, one that integrates English, drama and media . Depth: in its profound understanding of the contribution drama can make to literacy and learning, historically-situated and grounded in long experience of classrooms . Rigorous: in its agile deployment of theory, and its bridge-building between dramatic play and engagement with literary narrative. It rings with the voices of young people and teachers, and with the dramatic autobiographies of its authors. Properly critical of a contemporary context which threatens the arts in education, it also shows how the liberating outcomes of drama are not antithetical to exam success. It should be required reading for all who aspire to teach English, and to research it. Andrew Burn, Professor of English, Drama and Media, University College London Institute of Education