This study demonstrates how drama can reshape how middle school students understand writing and revision. Miami University faculty member Katherine Batchelor spent six weeks working with students in an international school in Warsaw, Poland, exploring how acting, puppetry, and embodied performance encouraged students to revise their stories in meaningful ways. Her findings respond directly to searches about drama, revision, theater, transmediation, and writing.

Batchelor designed the project around transmediation—the process of shifting ideas across modes. Students began by drafting flash fiction and then transformed those stories into scripts through process drama. As they acted out scenes, they discovered gaps, added new dialogue, and rethought character motivations. Several students described “seeing” their stories differently once they embodied their characters, echoing the embodied literacy concepts highlighted throughout the article (pages 14–15). Photos on pages 15–16 illustrate this vividly, such as Yun collapsing to her knees as a monster approaches or a pair of students staging a tense argument through posture, gesture, and facial expression. These embodied moments helped writers reimagine pacing, emotion, and plot details.

Students also experimented with aesthetics—costumes, props, lighting, and staging—to clarify meaning. Discussions captured on pages 16–17 show students working with their teacher to visualize setting, negotiate stage directions, and consider audience perspective. The eighth graders’ puppetry work added another layer of transmediation, forcing them to think about movement, timing, and visual storytelling.

While some students found it challenging to translate narrative description into script format, most said drama helped them generate new ideas and revise at a deeper level (pages 12–13). Batchelor concludes that drama offers a powerful, multimodal approach to writing instruction: it encourages risk-taking, supports English learners, and positions revision as creative, embodied meaning-making instead of error correction.

Faculty author: Katherine Batchelor, Miami University
Keywords: drama, revision, theater, transmediation, writing
Publication details: Journal of Language and Literacy Education (2019). “Meaningful, Embodied Literacies: Dramatic Play and Revision with Middle School Writers in Warsaw, Poland.” https://www.academia.edu/40985836/Meaningful_Embodied_Literacies_Dramatic_Play_and_Revision_with_Middle_School_Writers_in_Warsaw_Poland