| abstract | Theatre arts has been known to decline in public schools in the past decades, in part because of the No Child Left
Behind act of 2001. Another reason for this decline could be due to the fact that assessment, a relatively recent element of education, is hard to exercise
when the skills of theatre are more qualitative than quantitative. Can theatre in education teach more than just theatre? I argue that it can enforce the
skills of citizenship and creative literacy. Citizenship in this context is an attribute that gives students the ability to be aware of the world around
them, form their own opinions, judgments and beliefs based on their observations and to have the courage to speak up about what they deem important. I
define creative literacy as the ability to not only think creatively and innovatively, but to take those thoughts and be able to express them through
writing, speaking, images and other measures of literacy. In order to see if these qualities can be found in theatre programs, I look at the concept of
assessment, researching how it came about and what assessment tools are available for theatre arts. As a highly qualitative area of work, I discuss if there
are limits to assessment and if theatre arts can ever be assessed accurately using traditional tools. Examining the assessment methods of 52nd Street Project,
Writers Theatre of New Jersey and AdvantageArts@Drew, three different forms of theatre programs in education, I found that my terms manifest themselves. After
my research, I move on to observe and assess the 230 Broadway Project, a new theatre education endeavor by my colleague, Michelle Taliento, with Integrated
Playwriting lesson plans based on the Playmaking model of Daniel Judah Sklar. I was able to witness Taliento's lesson plans in full force and experiment
with the kinds of assessment methods that might be most conducive for the work. The results of my research and observations are a set of rubrics and other
assessment tools to be used in conjunction with not only Taliento's Integrated Playwriting, but any other theatre program looking to track the growth of
citizenship and creative literacy within their playwriting programs. |
