Having had the opportunity to teach two parallel classes, I compared the results of a class that was taught through drama (labelled 'drama class') and one that was taught in a 'conventional' way (labelled 'non-drama class'). Each text that the students wrote was collected by the teacher, corrected and commented on to the possible improvements to be made. Not all the teacher's comments were saved on the photocopies since in some cases, the uncorrected version was photocopied and stored for reference purposes. Thus, the teacher's comment can only be referred to in one of Yeti's texts.

The names used for the students are either the drama identities they invented for themselves or are names I made up for the non-drama class.

In the drama class, the students wrote a maximum of 8 texts. These were:

- A letter to Selma in which they described what they would do if they possibly won some of her money.

- Answers to a questionnaire concerning the possible consequences of a windfall as well as  a text that described the situation of a person the characters in the drama knew who had actually become rich overnight.

- A letter to an actual winner in the lottery with advice to him about what to do with his winning.

- A re-written version of the first text (the letter to Selma), this time including linking words to make the text smoother.

- A writing task in a first test that covered the material in the course book that was dealt with during the drama lessons.

- A post-project writing task in a second test one month later in which the use of various
tenses (past and future) was elicited, as well as the use of conditionals.

- A post-project composition as provided in the course book used to prepare part of the class to the Cambridge First Certificate of English on the topic of winning a fortune.

- A second draft of this composition.

For a sample of the development of the best achiever in originality and organisation, see Yeti's texts.

In the non-drama class, the students wrote 5 texts. These are:

- A text in which they speculated about the fact that they had 2 million pounds: What would I do with 2 million pounds?

- A second draft of this text, including linkers to make the text smoother.

- A text in which they looked back on having actually won in the lottery and regretting what they did with the money (use of the constructions ('I wish'/'if only')

- A writing task in a first test that covered the material in the course book that was dealt with during the drama lessons.

- A post-project writing task in a second test one month later in which the use of various
tenses (past and future) was elicited, as well as the use of conditionals.

For a sample of the development of the best achiever in originality, see Sally's texts.