Changing the World for the Better: Inventions for a Cleaner Planet

In this project I collaborated with English teachers at the secondary school IES Valmayor located in Valdemorillo, Spain. I worked with the students for ten weeks on a drama-based unit that integrated the vocabulary and grammar topics covered by the teachers in their regular classes. Students started by creating characters based off of famous people who had changed the world for the better. Then, in a dramatic framework as famous people collaborating in groups to change the world, students were invited to work in groups as their characters to develop an “invention for a cleaner planet” that they presented at a United Nation Special Committee for Changing the World for the Better. 

Exploring Critical Intercultural Pedagogy Through Process Drama Online

I completed this residency as part of my final Applied Project Thesis for my Masters in Fine Arts degree in Theatre for Youth and Communities at Arizona State University. Through engaging aspects of Participatory Action Research methodology, this project’s inquiry focused on how critical intercultural language pedagogy impacts how and what methods of performative language teaching practitioners and teachers employ in the English as an Additional Language Class. I designed and facilitated a virtual five-session residency at two schools Phoenix, Arizona with two group of emergent bilingual students in the sixth to eighth grade. I used Process Drama as my performative approach to explore a topic decided on by the participants surrounding “The future of…?” Through video-recording, post-session focus groups gathering aesthetic, written, and verbal responses, an end of project questionnaire, and a teacher-research journal, I employed inductive data analysis measures as inquiry into the participants’ intercultural learning in the workshops.

Engaging Intercultural Awareness in Language Learning Through Performative Language Teaching

A sample twelve lesson curriculum that draws from theoretical framing and research into how to engage intercultural learning in the language classroom. This curriculum is geared towards ninth grade ESL students in an English as an Additional Language course.

English Language Learning Theatre Workshops

Sample lessons from a five-week class that I designed and taught at the Marc Atkinson Recreation Center in Phoenix . The center is located in an area with a high population of refugee and asylum-seeking families, and many of the youth who attend this recreation center are dual-language speakers. The class focused on building English language literacy skills through drama-based work.

Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn Story Drama

I co-wrote and facilitated this lesson with one of my former fellow classmates. We taught this workshop to a group three to five-year-olds as part of our Story Drama and Literacy residency with the City of Tempe Public Library. The lesson centers on exploring the seasons through the book “Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn” by Kenard Park.

Why Drama? Sample Lessons for How to Use Drama in an English as a Second Language Classroom

This handbook is designed for English as a Second Language teachers to be able to access drama-based lessons for their classrooms. The focus of the sample lessons center on five-day unit exploring body parts through reading the short-story “The Gruffalo” by Julia Donaldson in the context of a 1^st grade ESL class. The lessons give a brief overview and a general idea of methods and techniques that could be adapted and utilized with any age group and language ability.

Go Green: Building an Environmental Project Proposal Through Drama in the Language Classroom

This residency is for a Primary/Grade Six English as a Foreign Language classroom, similar to the class I taught while working at the bilingual school in Madrid, Spain. The sessions focus on vocabulary from a unit on the environment and sustainability.

Drama for Teaching and Learning Sample Syllabus

I designed this syllabus as part of my work apprenticing my professor Mary McAvoy in her Creative Drama with Youth (Drama for Teaching and Learning) undergraduate course at Arizona State University. This course is offered for students in the Education or the Theatre department. As I have apprenticed this course as well as created my own syllabus, I am now qualified to teach this class at a university level.

If you would like to access to any more full lesson plans please contact me directly! https://jennanilson.com/contact