Transforming English through Drama

In Transforming English Through Drama, Jane Coles and Maggie Pitfield have presented an overwhelmingly forceful argument for the enactment of the ‘drama-in-English’ pedagogy formulated in their earlier work, Drama at the Heart of English. This collection of international classroom-based case studies offers powerfully persuasive accounts of the ways in which ‘drama-in-English’ approaches can foster enjoyment and motivation, stimulate creativity and create rich and meaningful learning for students. Coles and Pitfield rightly argue that English is in need of transformation; for all those involved in the subject who share this view, [and who believe in the centrality of effective learning and teaching of English for young people’s development] Transforming English Through Drama should be essential reading.

SIMON GIBBONS: Reader in English Education, King’s College London.

Maggie Pitfield and Jane Coles are to be warmly congratulated on their new edited book, Transforming English Through Drama: Case Studies in Classroom Practice. This wide-ranging collection promises to be an invaluable handbook for English, Language Arts, English as Additional Language teachers and the broader drama-in-education community. Each chapter makes a strong case for embedding drama-rich strategies and experiences in fostering deep and critical literacy learning. An experienced group of researchers and practitioners demonstrate how these inherently inquiry-based approaches motivate and engage learners, nurturing their creativity and imagination while drawing on their own identities and cultural understandings. A very welcome and very timely addition to the field.

ROBYN EWING AM: Professor Emerita, Co-Director, The CREATE Centre, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Sydney.

The push to bring in the 'knowledge-rich curriculum' has swept aside much of the arts curriculum in schools and one victim of this has been drama. Maggie Pitfield and Jane Coles have done a superb job here of building on their previous work by drawing in other practitioners to the cause. Transforming English Through Drama: Case Studies in Classroom Practice is a timely and much-needed book which lays out both the 'what' and the 'why' of collaborative drama work in schools, specifically in subject English.

MICHAEL ROSEN: Professor of Children’s Literature, Goldsmiths, University of London; poet and children’s author.