How We Work
The Educational Arts Team's programs are grounded in experiential learning theory and has evolved over four decades of research, implementation and refinement. Every lesson models higher order thinking and encourages mutual respect.
Our offerings are highly customized to meet the needs of each school and curriculum and are modified for different age groups.
Throughout our lessons students are lead to question, reflect, deduce, and problem solve while considering issues, themes, and characters from texts that they read.
Role Drama
Teachers and students work to get a deeper understanding of character motivations and traits, and to explore point of view.
These activities unlock narratives, spark curiosity about a text and foster student inquiry.
For example, students reading the curriculum novel, A Midwife's Apprentice, explore a critical moment in which a girl must decide whether to save a drowning boy who tormented her.
Or students might go in role as members of a school board to present an opinion on a pressing topic.
Students in role are empowered to grapple with issues and questions with no easy answers.
Theater Workshop
Acting, directing, and scenery-making techniques are used to delve into stories and novels and other classroom texts.
Students arrange their bodies, chairs, and other tools as symbols to create situations and narratives, drawing conclusions and making predictions through improvised encounters.
For example, students might read the first page of a text, and then arrange chairs to symbolize a scene, a conflict, a theme, or a concept from what they read. Stimulating the imagination in this way can create a portal to comprehension by making the invisible visible.
Puppet Making
Students construct puppets to represent characters from a text, then add voices and actions to
re-tell the story.
They make drawings to represent scenery, and put on desktop 'shows' for each other using custom-made cardboard stages.
These one-on-one performances allow all students a moment to shine, and it's a simple and imaginative way to help students get inside a story, to enhance comprehension and improve presentation skills.
Writing and Drawing
Writing flows naturally when students are given a chance to discover what it is they have to say.
All our workshops culminate in writing activities, and are often accompanied by drawing. Once students have been 'warmed up' to express themselves verbally during interactive experiences, they are ready to express themselves on paper.
After expressing themselves in words, they are led in creating images and illustrations to complement their writing.