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!
