Synthesis.... Final Blog Post!

At the end of this semester I realize I am truly one step closer to becoming a teacher. This class has helped me come up with new ideas to integrate literacy into the classroom. In this blog post, I will talk about four points of how I plan to teach in my future class.

Vocabulary Words

Theatre has a huge range of vocabulary words. From things that are in scripts, to words we use to describe the stage, there are a myriad of possible vocabulary words. Choosing the most “important” vocabulary words is nearly impossible- students need to know all of them! Of course, they won’t learn them all at once, so I would first divide the vocabulary words into the four theatre foundations classes. I would do this so that students have a constant exposure to new words. Speaking of exposure, I would constantly try to set an example with vocabulary words by using them in the classroom. I think vocabulary words are useless if you don’t use them in oral language, text, or in other ways. I would encourage my students to use these new terms in their writing and in class experiences. Using vocabulary words to describe the experiences they are having will help engrain those words in their minds, and give them confidence when using them.

Oral Language    

Theatre is all about oral language! There are so many opportunities for students to use oral language and find ways to express themselves in a theatre class. There is of course the obvious way of reading/memorizing a script and performing it. I would love to have students perform things like classical scenes, ethnomonologues, and self written work. There are many other opportunities for oral language in the theatre classroom. Something that I would integrate into my class is presentations. Students would present on everything from theatre history topics to their design choices. Having students get up in front of their peers is not only a great life skill to develop, but especially in the theatre profession, it is extremely important to be able to articulate ideas to others. This ties well into the vocabulary words as well, because in order to convey meaning to others, it is appropriate for students to use correct word choice.

Digital Technologies

One of the assignments that I enjoyed most from this class was the digital technology assignment as well as the text set (which I will talk about later). Because the Theatre industry is moving more and more towards technology it is extremely important to introduce technology in the classroom. Simple uses of technology like websites including Pinterest, Polyvore, and Google Sketchup are easy introductory ways to introduce simple design concepts. Students have easy access to these programs and will quickly learn how to use them. A huge movement in lighting design and set design right now is the use of projections. This technology is more advanced, and I will admit that right now I do not know how to use it. However, I believe this would be a great opportunity for me to learn something along side my students. I would really want to have the opportunity to invest in some new technologies for theatre design. I would also like to incorporate the idea of using student blogs as a way for students to voice their thoughts and opinions. After seeing how well it worked in this class, I 

think I would like to give it a try.

Texts

As mentioned above, one of my favorite assignments was creating the text set that students could use in the classroom. It got me thinking about the variety of texts that I would want to provide for my students. There are of course many classical plays that I would like students to be familiar with such as Shakespeare’s work, Moliere, Tennessee Williams, Oscar Wilde, and Samuel Becket, just to name a few. I would hope that any theatre class had a large library of plays for students to read. Other texts that I mentioned in my text set were acting books. Respect for Acting is a great example of an acting text book that literally every actor needs to be familiar with. These basic books are used even at the collegiate level, and are so important in the field of theatre. Design books and how to books (for props, set designs, costumes) are also things that I would want to encourage my students to read. Having these (non internet) resources for students is a great example of how to find information outside of the internet.

Lastly, I would just like to mention how much I have enjoyed creating this blog and sharing my thoughts about theatre and teaching. I have enjoyed having this outlet that was personal to my subject area. The comments written by others were awesome to hear, and I am sad to be done with this class. Hopefully I will be able to integrate blog writing into my future class. Thanks Amy!  

Oral Langauage

QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS

Although I did not have any exposure to theatre in middle school via a class (in fact, most schools do not have a theatre class before high school), I was exposed by attending high school theatre performances. These performances influenced me without even being aware of it, as I watched and admired older friends participate on the stage. In high school I was exposed to theatre actually though my Speech class (which was taught by the drama teacher). I began participating in theatre first in district and state competition. I stayed in the competition realm even into sophomore year when I auditioned for the Shakespeare Festival competition in Cedar City.  That experience influenced the rest of my theatrical career, and by senior year I was very active in Drama club and participating in two shows. When I arrived at Utah State I originally wanted to be Biology major, but soon realized how much I missed theatre. After attending a performance here, I decided I needed to change to Theatre Education.

I do not remember any specific discussions from high school theatre but while here at USU I have had many meaningful discussions in my theatre classes. We often have discussions with a wide variety of opinions represented within our class. One that really stands out to me was a discussion about censorship in high school theatre classes. The discussion was actually led by a student but I felt like it still followed the five elements of effective discussions. The questions were AUTHENTIC and had no real answers such as “Should we censor high school students in theatre?”  That is a hard question to answer and there were varying opinions and thoughts on the subject. The student who led the discussion was very good at the UPTAKE element because he always asked things like, “Why do you think that way?” He incorporated student answers into the discussion so it never felt like a question answer session. As far as the LEVEL of EVALUATION element, he also tried to give feedback to student’s comments by saying things like “I can see why you think that” or even “That’s interesting. Can you talk about that more?” Since we were all in a college level class the COGNITIVE LEVEL element was probably much higher than in a high school discussion. All the students in the class were expected to come well prepared and versed in the assigned articles in order to participate in the discussions. The QUESTION SOURCE stemmed from being assigned to discuss this topic and the purpose of this particular discussion was to voice opinions and possible solutions to the problem we face as theatre educators.    

I enjoyed reading this article because it made me think about my own process of choosing discussion questions, and reacting as students are giving answers. What makes a good question anyway?

Critical Literacy... why is it critical?

The theatre department here at Utah State University is comprised of a variety of students. Acting majors, design/tech majors, BA majors (an all around theatre degree) and theatre education majors. Being around a variety of "theatre people" who all have different goals in mind, has helped me notice a trend in the industry. Our profession is very product oriented- most people think of theatre as a production or a "show". I've noticed that often we don't spend enough time on the why of the project, but rather we spend most of our energy meeting deadlines and being excited about the end product.  

Theatre is actually an incredibly rich subject in which students MUST have critical literacy skills. Theatre is about studying the human condition and that cannot be done with out some skills. I think that the reason theatre teachers do not consciously incorporate critical literacy is because it takes time. And time in the theatre world is a precious thing when you are expected to have your students put up a fully realized production in six weeks. Theatre teachers are often more worried about the product they are expected to produce rather than the classroom environment and learning opportunities they want to provide.  

I really enjoyed the article and how it related to Image Theatre. Last semester, I actually took a class where we studied Augusto Boal and his methods. Image Theatre is an opportunity for students to express their critical literacy skills with their bodies and in "sculpting" each other. The method itself isn't difficult, but knowing when to use it can be. That is another reason I think some theatre teachers are hesitant to add critical literacy moments to their lessons- because they don't know how. Because of that specific class I took- I have that training, but not everyone will. 

The thing with critical literacy is it is hard to incorporate because it takes time and energy and know how of methods, but the great thing about it, is it is already inherent in a lot of what we do. Students are asked the hard questions when studying a play, they often have to use critical thinking when designing based on the script, and inherent in studying the human condition, they must critically think about social issues all the time. 

I do plan on using critical literacy in my classroom. I believe it is a necessary skill for students to have, and especially theatre students. I think that I will still have to make a conscious effort to incorporate it into my classroom's everyday learning, but I never want to get to caught up in the next production that I am forgetting to create meaningful learning.  

Digital Text and Reflection

http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/collection?id=4287238


For my digital text, I wanted to try something new. A couple of my friends who are costume designers told me about the website "Polyvore" which they use to create looks for costume designs. Since costume designing and rendering is not a talent of mine (and I expect, not a talent for the majority of my students) I thought this would be the perfect digital "text" to experiment with. On this website, you are basically creating outfits or "looks". This can include everything from basic pants and shirts to accessories. You can title the sets, and create a collection. (My collection is titled "A Play", while the sets are titled "Character A, B, C and D") The website was easy to use and I anticipate students would love being able to create looks in this manner. It is so easy to use and share ideas that I could see myself using this website for a class project.

However, the website did have some drawbacks. It is really catered to modern fashion, so creating any time period shows would be difficult. It is also limiting in the fact that all the clothes are for the same age range of people. I had a difficult time finding outfits for a young person, and an old person. Because plays are so varying this way, that would be difficult. Also there are no "old" or "distressed" clothes so if you had to say, design a character that was a farmer, this website would probably not be very helpful.

I use a similar website, pinterest, all the time when I gather ideas for costume, set and teaching ideas. However, I liked this website because it focused more on clothes and you are able to put them together in complete outfits where as you cannot do that on pinterest. Like I mentioned before, I could see myself using this website in a class on costume design. I would love for students to create their own designs and share their ideas with others in the class. Plus I think it is fun to use websites that are usually used for personal activities like polyvore and pinterest and apply them to teaching and theatre. Students are already familiar with how the websites work, so it is easy for them to apply it to theatre.

In conclusion, I have basically added another fun website to my list of websites that I visit far to often (Facebook, Pinterest, etc.) and waste too much time on. BUT this one I can apply to teaching, so I don't feel to bad about spending time on it. ;)

PS. I hope the link works, please let me know if you can't access it.

Writing Instruction

DYSGRAPHIA: A learning disability that inhibits a persons ability to communicate well through writing.

Although there were many things that stuck with me when listening to this week's power point, there was one idea that really stuck with me because of a personal connection. I wanted to write about it because it is a pretty uncommon thing many people don't know about, and I think as teachers we should be aware of these kinds of possibilities in our classrooms. The part of the power point that talked specifically on grading students based on their work and not just on semantics made me think about my younger sister. She has dysgraphia (a learning disability similar to dyslexia) which really affects her ability to write clearly and spell words correctly.

When she was younger, we just thought she had bad handwriting and troubles spelling. Although her teachers pointed to low comprehension levels- we knew better. My sister is incredibly smart, and has been an avid reader since she was young. She knew definitions, and vocabulary words way more advanced than her peers- but because of this learning challenge, she cannot spell to save her life. She hated writing exercises and spelling tests, because it was something she just could not achieve at, no matter how hard she tried. Once she went through the proper tests, and we found out exactly what it was that was holding her back, she was able to get some help. Although it wasn't really necessary for her to get an IEP for this learning challenge, my mom did make a point to talk to her teachers about it, so that they would be aware of it.

Some teachers were excellent about helping her, and not grading her harshly when it came to writing in class. They would gently correct, and help her recognize her mistakes, but they were not harsh about it. They were the type of teachers who had that climate that fostered writing.

Other teachers were not as helpful, and particularly for spelling tests, just marked it wrong if it wasn't perfect. (Part of her challenge is what Amy called "inventive spelling" in the power point.) She still felt that embarrassment and frustration, and it just got her nowhere.

I am not saying that teachers should give students special treatment in situations like this, but it was interesting to see when she started becoming more comfortable writing. She is now almost 17 years old and her handwriting is still hard to decipher. She often asks our 12 year old sister how to spell words when she is doing homework.

This was just a great example to me of teachers who can both encourage and discourage students from writing. My sister has some pretty legitimate reasons to not like writing, but because of the teachers she has had, she has been able to overcome it and at least enjoy writing a little.

If you want to learn more about dysgraphia, (or if I didn't explain it very well above) you can click here. This website actually has lots of resources for teachers.    

Vocabulary Words

Leg? Quick-rig? Downstage? Green Room? DMX? Shank Button?

Vocabulary words in theatre can be weird. There are lots of slang terms, technical terms, and typical vocabulary words. Theatre has many visual, hands on components, as well as textual, analysis components. It is interesting because often times, these two types of vocabulary words are presented in different ways.

A typical lesson having to do with script analysis often looks like a list of vocab words and definitions. What is plot? Where is the climax? Who is the antagonist? Very boring and typical. I have seen this happen in both my high school and college experiences. I think because this is the typical way these words are taught, this is just how teachers do it. However, I would love to learn and experiment with different methods to presenting this information to students. I would love to see them identify these words in connection with something.

The visual, hands-on vocab words are often presented in a much different way. To be honest, I think there are flaws with this method as well. For example, when teaching parts of a lighting instument, I was taught in this manner, "This is the shutter. This is the bulb. This is the tail. This is where you put the gobo." Seeing the working parts and putting a name with them does help you remember, however we never wrote them down. What was missing here was often the clarification method as talked about in the Harmon, Wood and Hendricks article. So if a student is a visual learner, this might be an excellent method. But if they need to see the words on a paper, or look at a diagram in a book, this needs to be added to the instruction.

My ideal method would be a blending of these two ideas. I think students need to connect visually, kinesthetically, and intellectually.  From the reading I really liked the list-group-label-and write method. The idea behind this was to have students brainstorm words that might belong in a certian group. Since theatre deals with many "groups" (costumes, props, lighting, playscripts) and each group has distinct vocab words, this method made a lot of sense to me.


P.S. If you want a definition  of those fancy words above, keep reading. They might surprise you.




Leg: The long curtains on a stage that touch the floor. NOT the front curtains.




Quick-rig: When an actor needs to make a quick costume change, a costume may have alterations to make it easier to get out of. For example a button
up shirt would have the buttons taken off, sewn on top
 of the button hole, and velcro added to the placket.




Downstage: The portion of the stage closest to the audience.

Green Room: A room near the stage where actors wait in between scenes or before a show begins. Not actually colored green. (Fun fact: They
used to be painted green because before modern
technology the type of lighting instruments were
amber colored and actors needed to give their eyes
a break so they didn't go blind.)




DMX: A cable used in lighting.









Shank Button: A button with no holes in it. Rather it is
attached to things through a small loop attached to the back of it.

Blog Post 2: Typical Texts in Theatre

For this blog post, I chose to answer question number 2 about the types of texts that are used in Theatre. The first thought that many might have about texts in theatre are playscripts. This is our number 1 text!So much of our work comes from these small pages, so it is imperative that students understand them.However, there are other important texts that students must be able to glean information from. Research is a big part of theatre as well, so being able to read anything from internet articles, to history books, is also very important. Theatre also has documents that go in the "bible" or production notebook. These types of documents might include costume fitting notes, rehearsal reports, budget and spending reports, prop lists, etc. Being able to not only read and interpret these, but also fill them out properly is so important in theatre. Those documents help the show run smoothly!

I have had both good and bad examples of teachers explaining how these texts are to be interpreted. When I first came to college, I took a class called Playscript Analysis. A whole class about how to read this type of text! The teacher taught us the basic principles, and then guided us as we read plays together. I remember thinking "Hamlet! I've already read that!" But he showed us a whole new way to look at the text and analyze what was going on. As a class, I think we were much more engaged, and I understood the text so much better than the previous time I had read it. A bad example also comes from my experience at Utah State.

Unfortunately those important documents that I mentioned before, weren't explained as well as they could have been. Instead of instruction, we were left to figure them out for ourselves, and hope that we understood them well enough to get the show running on time! This was a horrible way to learn these texts, as I basically had no help along the way. 

Unfortunately, I think the 2nd example is something that happens quite often in theatre. This type of instruction is so minimal, I'm sure Buehl would not approve! However, the 1st example uses some of Buehl's principles, especially the Gradual Release of Responsibility model on page 31. The professor used this model in that we began each play with explicit instructions and teacher modeling of how to approach the text. Secondly, we used interactive reading guides, (worksheets) and structured note taking while reading the text on our own. Once we had finished the text, we were in the "student regulated" zone in which we were able to make important connections and inferences on our own. It was only then that we were ever tested on the subject.

I would definitely replicate the way I was taught how to interpret playscripts. The teacher was engaged in the text, and helped us learn along the way. We actively participated in the before, during, after principle, with instruction happening at all points along the way. I would want to change the way the important documents were taught, by actually having an active discussion about them. These texts are just as important to theatre as the playscripts, but unfortunately they don't receive that much credit.








Here is an example of a play script... and one of my favorite plays. :) Read it! It is absolutely fabulous!

Introduction

January 13, 2015

To the world Out There...

My name is Sarah Lee (Luthy) Butterfield. Legally, my name is still Luthy even though I was married to my wonderful husband last March. I found out that changing your name is a lot of paperwork, and I am working on getting that done soon! But for now I just live in this awkward space where sometimes I forget my name completely...

My story goes like this... I went to a very small, very conservative high school in Sugar City, Idaho. When I was a freshman, we were all required to take Speech, and it just so happened that the Speech teacher and the Drama teacher was the same person. I loved Speech and found that I had a natural talent for it, so my teacher recommended I try entering the district drama competition the following fall. So I did. And all throughout high school I continued participating in Speech and Drama competitions, even competing (and winning 1st place as an ensemble) at the Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City. I did technical jobs like assistant directing and stage managing and my senior year I was in Julius Caesar and a farce (a type of comedy) called Accident, West Virginia, where I got to be a crazy hippie. These experiences were so much fun and I loved being involved, but at the time that's all they were to me. When I started school here at USU, I actually wanted to major in Biology. But after about a half a semester, I realized that I LOVED theatre, and that I BELONGED there. I knew I didn't want to be an actor, so the idea of being a teacher just fell into place. Now it is truly my passion, and I LOVE it.

Upon graduating I will be K-12 certified, and although I would like to teach high school, I have recently discovered a passion in children's theatre and working with younger kids. I recently assistant directed a TYA (Theatre for Young Audience) production called Still Life with Iris. That play got me so interested in TYA, that I have even begun working on a research project with my professor on writing for TYA.

I define literacy as so much more than being able to read and write. Its about knowledge, putting the power behind your knowledge and true understanding and comprehension. Theatre definitely involves literacy. Although many people have the misconception that theatre is just a bunch of plays and fun and an "easy class", there are a lot of elements that involve literacy and using texts. From scripts to theatre history to philosophy, theatre is just like any other subject, where comprehension and application is a must. I really hope to incorporate literacy into my teaching, especially to drive away the false ideas that people have about theatre being an "easy subject".

But for now...
"Do you mind? Let's talk about it later. Right now I'd rather be left alone. With my dreams."
-The Cherry Orchard, Anton Chekhov