WHY DOES DRAMA WORK?
Why does drama work? Dorothy Heathcote explains creative drama as a learning tool in an interesting fashion in her book Collected Writings on Education and Drama. She states that in drama:

People have to work out the lives they are pretending to live in a together way.
         Drama demands cooperation.
         
People have to employ what they already know, about the life they are trying to live.
			Drama asks students to apply their life experiences in creating new learning experiences.

People have to be able to live in two worlds at once and not get them mixed up.
       Drama uses fiction and fantasy, but make students more aware of reality.

People have to agree to sustain a common understanding of what they are making together 
no matter how separately they may appear to be thinking.
        Drama stresses that students agree to sustain mutual support for each other while allowing them the chance to work differently.

People have to express thinking, feeling, actions to each other. If they don't then no one 
in the group knows what is going on.
         So forces students to  find precision in communication.
         
Drama uses objects in a symbolic way.
         Drama stresses the use of reflection. Symbols become ordinary, 
			and the ordinary becomes symbols.
         
People have to interpret the actions of others but often in unfamiliar circumstances.
         Drama introduces students to testing crises. It tests their attitudes and their present capacities.

These ideas are food for thought and encouragement to use drama in your classroom. Some systems are challenged in thinking that drama is only "play." Hopefully, the before mentioned explanations of how drama fits into our lives can offer some inspiration to incorporate it into your class. --From Collected Writings on Education and Drama by Dorothy Heathcote