Drama Teachers! We’re talking rubrics

Episode 195: Drama Teachers! We’re talking rubrics Drama teacher Lindsay Johnson loves rubrics. And she wants you to love them too! Listen in to learn her process for creating assessments and making them effective for your classroom. Show Notes Theatrefolk Facebook Page Shreds and Patches Episode Transcript Welcome to the Drama Teacher Podcast brought to you by Theatrefolk – the Drama Teacher Resource Company. I’m Lindsay Price. Hello! I hope you're well. Thanks for listening! This is Episode 195 and you can find any links to this episode in the show notes which are at Theatrefolk.com/episode195. I’m excited. This is exciting. I know you’re excited because, today, we are talking about everyone’s favorite topic. I can’t even make it sound good. We’re talking assessment! Oh, an even better topic – rubrics! We should have a great big fanfare right there. Assessment and rubrics! I know, and you know, assessment is so tricky in the drama classroom when there are activities that are project-based and process-based and group-based. How do we make it all happen? Well, we’re here for you. we’ve got a guest today, a drama teacher who loves creating rubrics and she wants you to love them, too. So, let’s get to it! My guest is Lindsay Johnson. Hello, Lindsay! JOHNSON: Hello! PRICE: All right. Tell everybody where in the world you are situated right now. JOHNSON: I am in Minneapolis, Minnesota. PRICE: Awesome. JOHNSON: Teaching at South Minneapolis at a charter school, teaching middle school drama for seventh and eighth grade. PRICE: Awesome. How long have you been a teacher? JOHNSON: I’ve been teaching since 2009. PRICE: Math, everybody! For a while, awesome. JOHNSON: But I’ve only been teaching theatre for… This is my fourth year teaching theatre. PRICE: Was the plan to start something else and you ended up in drama? What was your path? JOHNSON: I started with Teach for America and I was placed in an English reading and writing environment. And so, I did that for the first five years or so. And then, I taught a year of social studies randomly because that’s what they needed at my school. And then, my principal asked what I wanted to teach, and I said drama. So, I’ve been doing that ever since and I’m the founding drama teacher and the only drama teacher in our entire network. PRICE: Oh, that could probably be a little bit lonely at times, I imagine. JOHNSON: Yeah, it is, that’s why I love DTA. PRICE: Ah! That’s awesome! DTA, of course, is the Drama Teacher Academy. So, what’s your drama background? What was drama like for you in high school and after that? JOHNSON: I actually really didn’t have a drama program at any school I attended. My drama background is completely in community theatre. I did a ton of community classes and then I was in a bunch of plays at our local community theatre all through school. In college, I didn’t actually get a degree in theatre, but I took every acting class available at my university for fun. Yeah, I’ve just been really involved in theatre all my life and I did drama club at a school when I was still teaching reading and writing and loved that. PRICE: So, when the call came, when someone asked you what you wanted to teach, why teach theatre? Why was that the thing that you wanted? JOHNSON: Yeah,