Students review different film versions of the play, Hamlet, and compare what was presented to the actual stage directions given in the original Shakespearean version.

Students, utilizing video clips and Web sites, compare specific passages from original texts to moments in Broadway musicals on which they were based, analyzing similarities and differences between them. They adapt literature into a...

Develop novice script-writers. Small groups sift through a sample script, noting any script-writing conventions to share with the whole class. Using these conventions and plot structures, these groups compose a script for a 10-minute...

High schoolers examine and discuss stage directions, stage area layout, and body positions. They complete a stage directions and body positions worksheet, and draw the body positions for each stage area layout.

What's the difference between set dressing and a prop? Between a costume accessory and a personal prop? As part of their study of set and prop design, class members engage in a series of activities that prepare them to design a prop for...

High schoolers identify and research cultural, historical, and symbolic clues in dramatic texts. They demonstrate knowledge of research sources.

High schoolers study the elements in the production of an opera including the personalities, ideas, and stage presence. They examine the skills that are necessary to be a performer in an opera in this series of lessons including making...

It's wonderful to see a lesson that incorporates art, movement, and writing. These three forms of creative expression are explored as learners dance to music from the Gullah people of West Africa. They analyze several paintings, listen...

Students research local waste management services, discuss findings, give opinions about what they have found, offer solutions and ideas, and create performance art, design art works, and fine art works to convey information on waste...

Young theatre artists engage in a scavenger hunt to acquaint themselves with set design. The challenge is to search the site and match a separate maquette with each of the 24 clues.

The murder of Emmett Till is the focus of a guided inquiry that asks scholars to research the events, the trial, recent attempts to reopen the case and the effect of the murder on people today.

Students create radio play scripts. In this "War of the Worlds" lesson, students write new scenes to be added to the radio play and then perform the scenes for their classmates.

Students become immersed in a compelling anecdote of the civil rights movement through the experience of constructing dramatic scripts. An added goal is to equip students, through this "hands-on" experience, to critique dramatic...

Young scholars explore the art of shadow puppetry. In this performing arts lesson, students study the functions of lighting in the puppet theater as they examine the transmission, absorption, and reflection of light. As a culminating...

Students explore Chinese instruments. In this Chinese instrument music lesson, students listen to a performance by Liu Fang and describe the sounds they hear. Students classify western and Chinese instruments according to their...

Students write a job posting for a career in the performing arts. They view a Discovery Channel video as an introduction to the types of performing art careers are possible. They choose one that they are most interested in to research on...

Students investigate the life and works of Eugene O'Neill. In this American theater lesson, students read biographical information about O'Neill and review Long Day's Journey into Night. Students then analyze the play in order to deliver...

High schoolers research the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, as well as other primary source documents, to determine Reconstruction's impact on the North and South. The 34-page inquiry-based lesson includes a staging question and...

“. . . one man in his time plays many parts,/His acts being seven ages.” Jaques famous speech from Act II, scene vii of As you Like It sets the stage for an examination of the roles people play. Class members not only consider the roles...

Drama is ever-present in our daily lives and eloquently depicted on stage. Middle schoolers practice writing scenes based on different prompts and frameworks, and then perform those creative scenes for their classmates. The...

“The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” is famous, in part, because it established a uniquely American form of humor. For this famous story, Mark Twain combines the tall-tale, the dialect story, and satire. Here is a resource...

Here is an authentic assessment task for Shakespeare's Macbeth. Young literature scholars prepare, perform, and record a news broadcast about the major events in the play. For example, groups may choose to report on the death of Lady...

Students create comedy skits based on family or domestic situation. They observe their own families, write a script for a vaudeville type skit, and perform the skit.

Young scholars collaborate in small groups to choose a scene that they write in place of a scene in Shakespeare's play "Julius Caesar". In this dramatic expression lesson, their scripts include roles, lines and stage directions. Students...