Improvised Classroom Drama in a Fictional Book Company: Urban Fifth Graders Learn about Colonial America by Reading, Sketching, and Writing in Role

Fifth-grade students take on the identities of adults in a fictional book publishing company, then research and write their own book about Colonial America. The improvised classroom drama of the publishing company brought a new dimension to student inquiry, and the pictures the students created to illustrate their book helped to reveal their comprehension of the information they were researching.