Shows how teachers can begin with the sound of a poem in performance as a springboard to a critical understanding of the writer's art. Provides suggestions helpful in staging performances. (GT)

Finds that students reported lower communication apprehension after both oral interpretation and public speaking classes, with no significant difference in reduction between the two classes. (SR)

Points out that issues in performance studies (oral interpretation) such as natural and literary language, performing ideology, and marginalized voices are not only not revolutionary but an extension or a return to traditional concerns of a 300-year tradition. (SR)

Argues that reading literature and poetry aloud dramatically is one way to catch youngsters' attention, turning them into lifelong lovers of the written and spoken word. Offers tips to prepare for an effective oral reading, including warming up the voice, and getting to know the text by breaking it into the three critical elements of any story:…

This lesson plan contains poetry-related activities that aim to help students read and interpret English poetry, and write their own poems. The activities are introduced in each of the following parts: talking about poetry, understanding poetic devices, interpreting poems, using poetry for language acquisition, writing original poems, performing…

Slam poetry was born in the Green Mill Tavern, a one-time Chicago speakeasy where Al Capone imbibed, when a construction worker and poet named Marc Smith revolutionized poetry readings with an Uptown Poetry Slam in 1986. Slam borrows heavily from the rhythms and wordplay of rap and hip-hop, as well as the stream of consciousness and metaphysical…

The recent growth in popularity among college students of dramatic interpretation in forensic competition justifies an examination of textual considerations and resultant criteria important to the evaluation of dramatic literature. The first considerations of the student contemplating the dramatic interpretation event are the selection of material…

Affectionately remembers a college professor and his particular approach to poetry reading and discourse. Refers to a Sufi tale regarding teaching and learning to demystify previous philosophical and pedagogical confusion. (JK)

From the director's point of view, a "memorable monologue" is one in which the actor exhibits imagination and invention in role-playing. Memorable audition monologues require a measured degree of "risk taking" and uninhibited abandon--the first task is to select monologues that suit the type of script and the role being cast.…

Describes six inadequate approaches used in teaching, analyzing, and interpreting poetry, and suggests a useful key" for the interpretation of poems. (SW)

Describes an exercise that introduces students to the unique characteristics of the third-person narrator and also improves skills in observation, story telling, and analysis. (PD)

Presents the script of a Readers Theater production to complement a previous article on Bertholt Brecht in theory and practice (EJ 225 131). (JMF)

Discusses the characteristics of audio books as a prototype of electronic books. Topics include vocal interpretation; the demands that audio books place on listeners; the advantages of listening over reading; and a vision of the electronic book of the future. (KRN)

Physical aspects of listening skills are described, including speech rate, syllable tone, word-word separation vs. joining, listening for "focus," word clues per message, and intonation. (LB)