Using drama to enrich a genre-based pedagogy for teaching academic writing across content areas

Abstract

Drama has the potential to enrich and enliven established approaches to literacy learning, engaging students and expanding their possibilities for meaning-making. Drama-rich pedagogy is well-established as an effective tool in supporting language and literacy development. However, research to date has not explored the possibilities of using drama to enrich established genre-based approaches to teaching writing. This article reports on findings from an interventionist case study in an Australian primary school examining how a Year Three/Four teacher used drama-rich pedagogy to support students’ academic writing of a scientific explanation text. The findings indicate three key pedagogical bene..