40 ENGLISHJOURNAL 110.3 (2021): 40–47 Drawing on practices taught by Globe Education, Shakespeare’s Globe, London, teacher- researchers studied the impact of drama- infused literacy activities in two middle school classrooms. T hirty seventh-grade students stand face-to- face in pairs, dispersed throughout a class- room in a culturally and linguistically diverse school serving a low-SES California commu- nity. Each student holds a duologue (stage directions have been removed to maintain focus on character) from act 2, scene 1 of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. In this scene, Portia confronts Brutus about his recent erratic behavior and sickly appearance. Despite her appeals, Brutus refuses to reveal his plans to murder Caesar. As students take turns reading their assigned roles aloud, they occasionally gesture with a dramatic wave of the hand to emphasize a word or phrase. Ini- tially, the students snicker and glance around awk- wardly as they navigate the text with their bodies and voices. Later, however, with repetition of the drama activity, they gain comfort with the process. The activity the students are doing is Hook, Probe, Deflect. Student A reads Portia’s lines; Stu- dent B reads Brutus’s lines. While reading their lines, each chooses one of three gestures to perform “at” their partner, conveying what their character is feel- ing: “hook” with their arm to show desire for close- ness or connection; “probe” or poke a finger to depict anger or accusation; or “deflect” by swishing them away with their hand, demonstrating desire for sepa- ration. This activity occurred in a ten-day mini-unit at the start of the school year. The unit featured ways that opposing values create conflicts between literary characters, anchored by selected excerpts from Julius Caesar. Excerpts allowed Jess, the students’ teacher, to introduce Julius Caesar and Shakespeare, even within mini-unit time constraints (Porter). Hook, Probe, Deflect is one among many drama practices used by practitioners of Globe Education, Shakespeare’s Globe London, a program we have partnered with for several years. The practices engage learners with Shakespeare’s works and other complex texts through drama practices. Jess and Laura, whose classrooms are profiled in this article, are teacher affil- iates of the Center for Shakespeare in Diverse Class- rooms, housed at the University of California, Davis, and Steven and Sergio are the Center’s research director and senior graduate research fellow, respec- tively. We view drama as a process to enable access, engagement, and ownership in the study of challeng- ing texts, including Shakespeare—“the mother lode of complex texts” (Thompson and Turchi 6)—and other literary and informational texts. In our work, we commit to innovative uses of classroom drama to support engagement and learning for culturally and linguistically diverse students across subjects and grades. Drama and arts activities are too seldom available for students in lower-SES commu- nities. Also, Shakespeare’s works often get explored with older students and those deemed “academically advanced” according to test-based tracking. In fact, both classrooms featured in this article are heteroge- neously grouped, in highly diverse middle schools. We offer vignettes from each setting to demonstrate Embodiment, Emotion, and Refection: Resources for Learning through Drama JESSICA J. JASPER, LAURA L. DVORAK, STEVEN Z. ATHANASES, AND SERGIO L. SANCHEZ