This week, Kennedy Center Teaching Artist Lenore Blank Kelner visited Indianapolis to provide professional development to teachers and teaching artists. On Tuesday, January 16, Kelner provided two workshops on Character Interviews; the morning session was held at Eliza Blaker Elementary School, and the afternoon session was held at Edison School of the Arts. The workshops focused on connecting reading comprehension with drama. Kelner took participants through three lessons, which included tips on how to keeps students engaged during read-alouds, teaching vocabulary words by using theatre/drama tools and concepts, and using a talk-show setting to interview students as characters from books to test comprehension and encourage inferences.

On Wednesday, January 17, Kelner demonstrated her lessons with a fourth grade class at Edison School of the Arts. Teachers were able to observe and have a debrief discussion afterwards. Between the two days of professional development, over 60 teachers were able to participate.