Mission to Mars: Using Drama to Make a More Inclusive Classroom for Literacy Learning

Abstract

This article demonstrates how drama can be used by classroom teachers to make classrooms more inclusive for the language and literacy learning of children with disability labels by positioning children as powerful and by creating situations where the children can form identities as competent in language and literacy events and practices. The article is grounded in the analysis of teaching and learning examples from a second-grade classroom comprised of two blind and two visually impaired children who are being prepared for inclusion in a general education classroom. The article provides a definition of drama along with an analysis of some of the competing assumptions about what it means to “include” children with “disabilities” in classrooms. Further, the author shows how teachers can use drama to disrupt power relations among children and provide more focus and support to some children in order to create spaces for all children to engage in language and literacy practices.