Drama of Color: Improvisation with Multiethnic Folklore [Paperback]

Johnny Saldana (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 17, 1995 | ISBN-10: 0435086677 | ISBN-13: 978-0435086671

Drama of Color is a book for teachers who wish to use folk literature and informal classroom drama to promote multiethnic awareness among elementary students. Salda-a presents twenty folk tales drawn from the oral traditions of Hispanics, Native Americans, Asians and Pacific Islanders, Africans, and African Americans. He encourages teachers to use the literature as a framework and springboard for pantomime and verbal improvisation, adding detailed methods for dramatizations, with follow-up activities in the social studies and language arts. In these dramas, you and your students will find not only the commonalities that link all human beings, but also the special values, symbols, and traditions that differentiate and distinguish us as individuals and groups.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“[This is] a clearly written and easy-to-use volume.”–MultiCultural Review

About the Author

Johnny Saldana is a professor of theatre at Arizona State University in Tempe, where he supervises theatre education and teacher training. He has conducted workshops on drama in the elementary classroom nationwide, and he received the American Alliance for Theatre & Education's 1989 Creative Drama Award. His exemplary teaching earned him ASU's Burlington Resources Foundation Faculty Achievement Award in 1991, and the ASU College of Fine Arts Distinguished Teacher of the Year Award in 1995.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Heinemann Drama (July 17, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0435086677
• ISBN-13: 978-0435086671
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #621,921 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Johnny Saldaña is a Professor of Theatre in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts' School of Theatre and Film at Arizona State University (ASU) where he has taught since 1981. He has been involved in the field of theatre education as a teacher educator, drama specialist, director, and researcher.

Mr. Saldaña is the author of Drama of Color: Improvisation with Multiethnic Folklore (Heinemann, 1995), a teacher's resource text and recipient of the 1996 Distinguished Book Award from the American Alliance for Theatre & Education (AATE); Longitudinal Qualitative Research: Analyzing Change Through Time (AltaMira Press, 2003), a research methods book and recipient of the 2004 Outstanding Book Award from the National Communication Association's Ethnography Division; Ethnodrama: An Anthology of Reality Theatre (AltaMira Press, 2005), an edited collection of ethnographic-based plays; and The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers (Sage Publications, 2009), a handbook on qualitative data analysis. His forthcoming textbook, Understanding Qualitative Research: The Fundamentals, will be published by Oxford University Press in 2011. Saldaña has published articles in such journals as Youth Theatre Journal, Stage of the Art, Teaching Theatre, Research in Drama Education, Research Studies in Music Education, Multicultural Perspectives, Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, and Qualitative Inquiry. He has also published chapters on research methods for such titles as Arts-Based Research in Education, Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Research, Handbook of Longitudinal Research, and entries for The Sage Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods.

Saldaña's research methods in longitudinal inquiry, ethnodrama, and coding have been applied and cited by researchers internationally to explore such diverse topics as: mathematics education in middle school, adult education in graduate school, media education, music education, sexuality education, religious education, English language learning, child empathy, wives of professional athletes, academic careers of scientists, human resource development, gay youth and identity, transgender identity, female African American adolescents, date rape prevention, abused women, domestic violence, women with HIV, Alzheimer's disease, patients living with inoperable cancer, the ethnography of technology, international university students, Chicago public school teachers, the health uninsured in California, incarcerated youth in Canada, nursing home care in Canada, documentary filmmaking in Singapore, adolescent masculinity in Australia, women faculty in Australian academia, teenage and young mothers in the UK, and child and family development in the UK.

Mr. Saldaña's workshops and keynote addresses reflect a broad range of interests including drama in the classroom, drama with multicultural materials, ethnotheatre, theatre for social change, and qualitative research methods. Saldaña has presented for such organizations as: the Arizona Artist/Teacher Institute, the New Orleans Public Schools, the Louisiana Institute for Education in the Arts, the Southeast Institute for Education in Theatre, the Tennessee Arts Academy, Northwestern University, Western Michigan University, New York University, the University of Hartford, the University of Amsterdam, the University of Alberta, the University of Victoria, the University of Leeds; and at national conferences of: AATE, the Educational Theatre Association, Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed, the International Drama in Education Research Institute, the American Educational Research Association, the National Association for Multicultural Education, Narrative Inquiry in Music Education, the International Institute for Qualitative Methodology, the European Qualitative Research Conference in Health and Social Care, and the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry.

Saldaña is an eight-time recipient of the President's Citation of Merit from AATE, the 1989 Creative Drama Award, the 1996 and 2001 Research Awards from AATE, the Burlington Resources Foundation Faculty Achievement Award in 1991, the ASU College of the Arts Distinguished Teacher of the Year Award in 1995 and 2008, and the ASU College of the Arts Research Award in 2005. In 2000, 2008, and 2009 he was recognized as a finalist by the ASU Parents Association for Professor of the Year.

Mr. Saldaña received his BFA in Drama and English Education in 1976, and MFA in Drama in 1979 from the University of Texas at Austin. Saldaña has taught at UT-Austin and Washington State University in Pullman. He was born in Austin, Texas, and currently resides in Phoenix. Professional memberships include: the International Association of Qualitative Inquiry, the International Institute for Qualitative Methodology (Member Scholar), the American Alliance for Theatre & Education, the Educational Theatre Association, and the American Educational Research Association.