Adolescence is a tough time for secondary students as well as for you, their teachers and support professionals. Being no longer a child, but not quite an adult, teens need a safe, enjoyable outlet that engages them and gives them a chance to talk about their feelings. Drama can be that outlet, and in Drama and the Adolescent Journey, you'll find ways to use dramatic enactments to help adolescents make a successful transition to adulthood. In Drama and the Adolescent Journey you'll discover a variety of drama activities that start students on a journey toward greater self-esteem and maturity. Teens will learn to situate their experience within their own lives and within the world at large. With a strong research base beneath them, Linda Nelson and Lanell Finneran demonstrate both why and how drama can help students enjoy their journey, show them ways around the roadblocks they may meet, and offer them a sense of how far they've come and where they'd like to be going. In addition, they offer crucial strategies for success with: understanding the developmental and behavioral changes of adolescence selecting content that truly engages adolescents and addresses their needs structuring drama activities to give teens the best possible support managing the activities and attending to the practical concerns of teaching with drama. Give teenagers the gift of self-knowledge. Read Drama and the Adolescent Journey and find a great new way to guide them through one of life's toughest times.

Adolescence is a time of individuation--children are slowly finding their identity as adults, separate from their parents and other adult influences. Such a critical time of psychological development is complicated by cultural influences that shape their expectations of adulthood and color how they relate to other people and even God. The task of the youth pastor becomes to help adolescents navigate this often treacherous journey, helping young people reconcile their experience of childhood to the reality of their impending adulthood, and rooting and establishing them in a faith that can sustain them through their adult journey as well. Drawing on the insights of sociology and psychology, Jacober reveals youth ministry to be an act of practical theology, and helps youth pastors find their footing as they guide young people through adolescence.

Dyan Sheldon's vain, melodramatic, and utterly lovable Lola will appeal to any young reader who has angled for acceptance. Mary Elizabeth Cep (or Lola, as she prefers to be called) longs to be in the spotlight. But when she moves to New Jersey with her family and becomes a student at Dellwood "Deadwood" High, Lola discovers that the role of resident drama queen is already filled--by the Born-to-Win, Born-to-Run-Everything Carla Santini. Carla has always gotten everything she wants-that is, until Lola comes along and snags the lead in the school play. Can Lola survive Carla's attempts at retaliation? Will Lola and her best friend, Ella, find a way to crash their favorite band's concert hall and farewell party in New York City--to which Carla has already gained entrance? And once the curtain goes up on the school play, which drama queen will take center stage?

"A teen obsessed with 19th century literature tries to cull advice on life and love from her favorite classic heroines to disastrous results--especially when she falls for the school's resident lothario"--

Teen daughters are on an emotional rollercoaster, and responding in kind adds fuel to the fire. It’s important for moms to be a stable anchor during this stage in their life. Family therapist and mom Colleen O’Grady shares what she learned firsthand during her own daughter’s teenage years about how best to calmly de-escalate even the most stressful scenes and parent intentionally even when your teen is pushing you away. In Dial Down the Drama, O’Grady shows every mom how to learn to: Regain perspective Break the cycle of conflict Tune into her daughter without drowning in the drama Foster spontaneous conversations Replace worrying and overreacting with effective communication and action And much more! Moodiness, anger, and defiance can stress the best of us. This empowering guide gives you the tools you need to defuse the drama - and dial up the joy. As Colleen has said, you don’t dial down the drama in order to survive the teenage years; you do so because you actually can enjoy them! Dial Down the Drama provides the tools you need to do just that.

Are you a drama student looking for other ways to practice in your field? Perhaps you teach drama students or as a teacher want to enliven your lessons. Are you an actor who wants to diversify your role repertoire? Are you a therapist who uses active approaches to promote your clients' creative potentials? Maybe you want to be involved in a meaningful form of social action? This is the book for you Thirty-two innovators share their approaches to interactive and improvisational drama, applied theatre, and performance, for education, therapy, recreation, community-building, and personal empowerment.You are holding the only book that covers the full range of dynamic methods that expand the theatre arts into new settings. There are approaches that don't require memorizing scripts or mounting expensive productions. Dramatic engagement should be recognized as addressing a far broader purpose. There are ways that are playful, and types of non-scripted drama in which the audience become co-actors. This present book is unique in offering ways for participants to become more spontaneous and involved.

This book "offers a comprehensive outline of improvisation and interpretation strategies that teachers can incorporate in classroom instruction."--Page 4 of cover.