This article provides primary teachers with assessment tools and curricular examples to expand writers' workshop by adding a multimodal storytelling unit on drama and filmmaking, allowing students to create engaging off-the-page stories through films and play performances that enrich writing. Too often, children's literacy abilities are assessed…

Argues that various forms of drama such as synchronized movement, pantomime, and improvisation are natural companions to reading instruction. (Author/FL)

Describes how fourth- and fifth-grade students perform Shakespeare and improve their reading skills at the same time. (DD)

Defines self-directive dramatization as activities in which children direct themselves in acting out characters in stories they have read and suggests that such activities can influence children's self-concepts and their attitudes toward reading. (FL)

This article describes a successful teacher-professor collaboration to plan interdisciplinary curriculum and team-teach it in a first-grade classroom. The goal was to use literature and drama to help children learn about and find meaning in African American experiences and perspectives. Writing, staging, and performing three plays about African…

Describes how a "radio" presentation of a basal play or favorite story fosters oral reading in reluctant readers. (MM)

Outlines a program for incorporating oral interpretation activities into an elementary school curriculum. (RL)

Presents five reading activities: "Building Self-Esteem through Poetry" (Sara Garfield); "Pictures and Poetry" (Stephanie J. Bissell); "Using Caldecott Books" (Merrilyn Bush Norem); "Reading and Writing with Quilting" (Marian Kveton); and "Dramatizations of Fables: Fun for All" (Babette I. King).…