Personal Growth and Confidence Building in the Middle School Student Facilitated through Theater

Abstract

Studies done through the American Alliance for Theatre and Education have shown that, “In addition to building social and communication skills, overall involvement in drama courses and performance has been shown to improve students’ self-esteem as well as their confidence.” Unfortunately due to lack of funding, many public schools, especially low-income, inner-city schools are unable to support a drama program. For my honors thesis, I would like to prove the theory of the importance of theatre as a tool for building self-confidence by producing and directing a show in a local, inner-city middle school as I feel that this is a critical age when self-esteem is most fragile and where theatre would be most beneficial. I will carry out this production with a minimal budget, supporting the idea that theatre can be done with little funding and can eventually become a self-sustaining program within the school. This program will incorporate the Common Core College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for speaking and listening for grades six through twelve provided by the Massachusetts Curriculum for English Language Arts and Literacy.