Date of Award

7-1990

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Education

Department

Education

First Advisor

Jeanne Donovan

Second Advisor

Gene Henderson

Abstract

The primary objectives of this language arts unit were (a) to show that drug prevention objectives could be integrated into the secondary language arts curriculum without taking away time allotted for regular course objectives, and (b) to show that drama was an effective teaching strategy to combine language arts and drug prevention objectives. A secondary objective was to produce a video that could be used as a drug prevention tool with junior high school students. A six day unit which was taught to sixty-two tenth grade students at Grandview R-II High School in Jefferson County, Missouri, centered around producing five minute drug prevention skits. Students chose drug prevention topics, researched them, identified skit ideas to illustrate some aspect of the topic, developed the skit through role play or the writing process, rehearsed the skit, then taped it. A tape of four of the thirteen skits created during the unit was edited to produce the drug prevention tape . Evaluations of the project were completed by the tenth grade students taking part in the project, a junior high Sunday School class who viewed the tape of the four skits , the teacher teaching the unit, the Grandview R-II superintendent, and the National Council of Alcohol and Drug Abuse representative to the school. The evaluators concluded that the unit had been effective in combining drug prevention and language arts objectives and that drama could be used as an effective drug prevention strategy. The unit was especially successful in teaching affective objectives such as self-confidence and working together as a group. The unit was only partially successful in achieving the secondary goal of producing a drug prevention tape. Due to poor technical equipment and student acting skills, the tape produced had only limited drug prevention use.

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