Courses Summer 2011

 

English 525

Dr. Thomas C. Crochunis

Description

In this course, we will explore how drama and performance-based learning experiences can help us work with young people in ways that support their lives and identities, learning, literacy, and sense of community. We will experiment with teaching approaches inspired by performance theories to find out how we might work with adolescents on language learning, literature study, and social problem solving. We will read, think, and talk about practical ways of working with adolescents that emerge from performance-based theories of language, learning, and literacy. Throughout the course, we will study how performance-based activities affect learning, particularly focusing on adolescents but also considering other developmental stages as suits the students in the course and their respective projects.  Since the term “performance” ismost closely associated with theatre and drama, the course will also look at how a few plays stretch the boundaries of performance to make us aware of ourselves and our society in new ways.

Books / Texts

Major Assignments/Grading

·       Response Journals—Two times a week, you will write journal entries in response to course reading assignments. Each Monday and Thursday, you should hand in one 250+ word journal response. At the end of the course, you will compile a portfolio of these journal entries introduced by a reflective overview of your thinking about the course readings and topics. Your work on these journals and the final portfolio will be worth 25% of your grade.

·       Research Project—Your major project will be a multi-genre research project that will be based on independent reading of research and practice literature written on an issue related to performance and learning that you decide to investigate, compilation of a set of teaching resources for working with that issue in classrooms, and development of a two-to-three week plan for how to use performance to explore the issue in a real classroom. You will complete work on this project in several stages—proposal, annotated bibliography, rough draft, and final draft. Much of the work will be done at your own pace outside of class, but we will occasionally have opportunities for sharing and collaboration during the course. I encourage you to develop your final version of the project as both a paper document and a digital file that can include text, image, audio, and video material.  This project will be worth 25% of your grade.

·       Attendance/Participation—I will assess your participation in class using a rubric handed out in class and posted on D2L. Alternative assignments can be made to compensate for unavoidable absences by agreement with the professor. Attendance/participation will be worth 25% of your grade.

·       Performance Project—Drawing upon the ideas for using performance to explore texts and social issues discussed in the course, you will prepare a performance project—either on your own or in collaboration with other students—to be made available for viewing at the last class meeting. Projects may be presented live, but they may also be recorded in video, audio, or digital graphic narrative forms. The performance project will be worth 25% of your grade.