“THIS IS OUR STORY!”: REIMAGINING AN EARLY CHILDHOOD LITERACY CURRICULUM USING DRAMA INTEGRATION

Despite many scholars arguing for the power of drama in elementary spaces, drama education still is not prevalent in elementary classrooms in the United States. One reason for this is the lack of drama education teacher education, due in part to the financial constraints of teacher preparation programs and school professional development programs, and due to the scarcity of time for teachers or teacher preparation programs to spend on drama teacher education, since pressure is placed on other “high stakes” priorities such as standardized test preparation. This practitioner inquiry study brought together two teachers - a 2nd grade teacher- researcher, and a drama integration teacher-researcher - to ask what happens when they co- construct a community of inquiry, centered on drama integration curriculum design and enactment, and how the students respond to the curriculum.