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!