Lesson Plans Articles for Drama Teachers

The one-act play The Burgundy Letter by Kirk Shimano is an awesome, modern reimagining of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. This adaptation is aimed at a high school audience and reframed...

How do your students act when you’re not there? Do you dread getting feedback from a substitute? Here are five tips to set your students up for success with a substitute teacher.  1. Try to keep...

Monologue writing is a great exercise for students. The monologue is a mini play: It has a beginning, middle, and end, as well as character, conflict, and often a listener. This makes the monologue...

Even in the middle of struggle, the arts create space for laughter, beauty, imagination, and play. They remind us that humans are storytellers and creators, capable of imagining solutions,...

Ideally, we want students to study characters and bring them to life through scene work. But what if you have students who have been away during rehearsals and you need a related activity for them...

How do the arts make life more bearable? Click below to access a one-class lesson plan that uses this George Bernard Shaw quote as its starting point: “Without art, the crudeness of reality would...

The Emergency Lesson Plans: Middle School Drama Class Task Sheets resource is specifically designed for the middle school drama teacher. Everything you need is at your finger tips: task sheets with...

Drama teachers understand that we must plan our curriculum around the standards established by school boards, administrators, and other leadership. But whenever possible, it’s wonderful to...

Lesson planning is the backbone of effective teaching. Think of lesson plans as your classroom's roadmap—they guide everyone toward shared learning goals. When they're on point, the classroom runs...

Curriculum is the cornerstone of your entire teaching foundation. Your curriculum is the roadmap that tells you what, when, why, and how you will teach your students. However, there is no...

Many drama teachers look for large cast plays with huge ensembles so they can include every student who wants to participate. But sometimes you don’t need something that big. Maybe you have a new...

The following lesson was created for students to discover, appreciate, and display respect for diverse, real-life issues and events in the theatre world. It can be done live in class, assigned as...

If you miss doing shows with your students, you’re not alone. We’re all missing live theatre! Luckily, there are playwrights writing virtual plays for online platforms that you can do right now....

How do you adapt existing lessons to a virtual environment? The goal is to adapt without reinventing the wheel, which is an added unnecessary stress. Some lesson plan elements will remain the same...

Drama isn’t always the easiest subject to adapt to distance learning. So much of what makes drama fun and worthwhile involves human interaction. Seeing students engage with one another, create...

Radio plays are theatrical performances that are purely auditory; they’re meant to be performed on the radio, hence the name! There is no visual aspect, so performers must rely on their vocal...

If you want your students to physicalize their characters, get them thinking about status. What is status?Answer this question for yourself. Write down a couple of different answers yourself, then...

A mixed message is when someone communicates two conflicting ideas at the same time, making it unclear what they really mean. This can happen through: • Words vs. actions (saying one thing, “I’ll...