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There is no other book like this one. Building Moral Communities fills a wide gap in the research literature on effective teaching strategies to build better social skills, conflict management competence, and deep understanding of history, literature, and social interactions and organization. Despite pleas for the infusion of more drama in classroom instruction, there is far too little authority in the form of methodologically sound and convincing research to back up the claims of drama specialists. This book is for those looking for that authority: researchers, advocates, teachers, policy makers, and doctoral students who want to look at responsible citizens. College teachers of such courses as social foundations of education, educational drama and the arts, drama across the curriculum, creative approaches to curriculum, current research method alternatives, instructional strategies, social policy issues in education, and character education will find this a valuable textbook. They will also find the descriptions of drama's use in adult classes informative and useful. Although the focus of this book is on the effects of drama, teachers of all levels and subjects will find the rich and detailed descriptions of drama in action an illuminating guide for their own practice.
List of contents
Introduction
PART I: RESPONSE TO MORAL DILEMMAS IN LITERATURE AND HISTORYThe World Is a Stage: Dramatic Enactment as Response to Literature, Peter Smagorinsky
Reading in the Age of Testimony, Paula Salvio
Making Lives Meaningful: Extending Perspectives Through Role-Play, Karen Hume and Gordon Wells
PART II: CONFLICT RESOLUTION
When Resolution Comes in Stages: How Drama Makes Good Use of Conflict, Jennifer Lynn Wolf and Shirley Brice Heath
Using Drama to Teach Conflict Management, Holly Giffin and Katherine Rose Yaffe
Attitudes, Behavior, and Moral Reasoning, Betty Jane Wagner
PART III: DRAMA AS ENTRÉE TO THE WRITTEN WORD
Building a Community that Values Historical Documents, Betty Jane Wagner
Creating a Context for Persuasive Letter Writing, Betty Jane Wagner
PART IV: TEACHER DEVELOPMENT
A Lifetime of Drama Teaching and Research, Richard Courtney
Creative Drama as Adult's Work, Joe Norris
About the Authors
Author Index
Subject Index
About the author
BETTY JANE WAGNER is an internationally recognized authority on the educational uses of drama in the classroom and on writing instrucation. The author of numerous books in the field, she is a professor in the College of Education at Roosevelt University and Director of the Chicago Area Writing Project.
