Your Drama Standards Checklist: Getting the Theatre IAS in Place Before Day One
Your Drama Standards Checklist: Getting the Theatre IAS in Place Before Day One
The week before students walk through your classroom door is the perfect time to get your drama program organized around Indiana's IAS standards. I'm not talking about the aspirational Pinterest-board version of organization—I mean the real, functional kind that actually helps you teach and keeps you sane when you're juggling scenes, performances, and standards-based assessment all at once.
Let me walk you through what I've learned works in Indiana drama classrooms, specifically around the Theatre Connection standards that show up on ILEARN expectations.
Step 1: Print Your IAS Standards and Physically Sort Them
Before you open a single digital document, print out the Theatre Connection standards. Yes, actually print them. Find TH:Cn11 and TH:Cn12 and spread them out on a table. These are your anchors for the year.
Here's what you're looking at: TH:Cn11 deals with Interrelating—applying skills and knowledge from different art forms and content areas into your guided drama experiences. TH:Cn12 is about Research—connecting artistic ideas to societal, cultural, and historical context. Both of these show up in different ways across your grade levels and course levels.
Write these on index cards or sticky notes and physically arrange them by unit or semester. Don't overthink this step. You're just getting them visible and real.
Step 2: Map Out Your Units Against TH:Cn11.1.1.a and TH:Cn12.1.1.a/b
Look at the sub-standards that actually get taught. TH:Cn11.1.1.a asks students to apply skills and knowledge from different art forms and content areas in a guided drama exercise. That word "guided" matters—it tells you this isn't a free-for-all improv day. You're structuring it.
Ask yourself: Which of my units naturally pull in skills from other classes? If you're teaching a unit on social issues, are your students reading literature in their English class that could fuel a scene? Are they learning history that could ground a character study? Write these connections down next to your unit plans.
Do the same with TH:Cn12.1.1.a and TH:Cn12.1.1.b. These standards ask students to identify similarities and differences in stories from their own community, and to collaborate on creating scenes from fictional literary sources. These are concrete, doable tasks that feed into your curriculum.
Create a simple three-column document: Unit Name | IAS Standard(s) | Teaching Activity. Fill it in as you go. This becomes your reference sheet all year.
Step 3: Decide How You'll Document Evidence for ILEARN
ILEARN isn't going to show up in drama the way it does in English or Math, but your work still needs to be visible and defensible. Plan now for how you'll collect evidence that students are meeting these standards.
For TH:Cn11.1 work, that might mean video clips of guided exercises where students clearly apply cross-curricular skills. For TH:Cn12.1 work, it might be written reflections where students identify what cultural or historical context informed a scene they created.
Set up a folder system now—digital or physical, your choice—labeled by standard. Drop evidence in throughout the year rather than scrambling in May. I use a simple Google Drive folder structure: one folder per unit, subfolders for each standard where applicable, and a "Student Evidence" subfolder within each. Takes five minutes to set up now; saves hours later.
Step 4: Build a "Guided Drama" Toolkit
Both TH:Cn11.1.1.a and TH:Cn12.1.1.b emphasize "guided" experiences and "collaboration." This means you need structures in place. Before the year starts, collect and organize your go-to guided drama activities:
- Scene-building prompts (especially ones tied to literary sources for TH:Cn12.1.1.b)
- Character interview templates that help students research and build context
- Comparison charts for identifying similarities and differences in stories (TH:Cn12.1.1.a)
- Cross-curricular connection templates for when you're pulling in other subjects
Organize these in a binder or digital folder by standard and by activity type. Label them clearly. When you're two weeks into October and need a quick activity that hits TH:Cn12.1, you want to find it in seconds.
Step 5: Create a Standards Tracking Sheet for Your Grade Book
Your grade book software probably has standards-based tracking options. Use them. Before school starts, input the IAS standards you actually teach, organized by unit or term.
This serves two purposes: it keeps standards visible in your day-to-day work, and it makes progress reporting easier when parents or administrators ask how students are doing against state expectations.
Step 6: Audit Your Scripts and Texts Against Standards
Review the plays, scenes, and literature you're planning to use. Which ones naturally support TH:Cn12.1 work around historical or cultural context? Which ones will let students practice the kinds of collaboration required in TH:Cn11.1.1.a?
Make notes directly on your curriculum documents about which standards each text serves. This prevents you from assigning work just because it's fun without connecting it to what students need to demonstrate.
Your Real Checklist
- Print and organize IAS standards TH:Cn11 and TH:Cn12
- Map units to specific sub-standards
- Set up evidence collection folders
- Compile guided drama activities organized by standard
- Input standards into grade book
- Audit scripts and texts for standards alignment
Do these six things before Labor Day, and you'll walk into your classroom with clarity. Your students will benefit from intentional, standards-aligned instruction rather than activities that feel disconnected. And when it's time to talk about what your drama program is doing for Indiana students, you'll have evidence and language ready to go.