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The use of pedagogy and theatre of the oppressed and interactive theatre exercises in the community college composition classroom
Abstract
The purpose of this teacher research project was to determine the effectiveness of using Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed teaching methods along with interactive theatre exercises in the composition classroom at Metropolitan Community College, Omaha, NE. The research was designed to make use of interactive theatre exercises to help the students access and expand their creativity. Oppression-based topics were also utilized to enlighten the students about the their own and others' oppressions through critical thinking. In combination the two areas were to create more real, meaningful, and productive writing situations. Throughout the school quarter students engaged in interactive theatre activities to help demechanize their minds and bodies and to help them access more of their creativity. The students also read, discussed, and wrote about stories and articles based on various oppression-related subjects. For each class the students journaled over the stories and wrote stories based on their own personal experiences. They also kept another weekly journal where they recorded their thoughts about the class activities. These were available after the quarter had ended and the students had been given their grades. Some students were also interviewed after the quarter was over regarding their thoughts on the effectiveness of the class. They were asked how much knowledge they had gained concerning oppression in the world on personal and public levels, and how they thought their writing had evolved as the quarter progressed. Information was framed around four goals for the classroom. They were: community building in the classroom, demechanizing the mind and body, enlightenment from oppression issues, and process writing on personal and oppression topics. The teacher research expanded the methods that can be used in the college composition classroom to aid students in creative and critical thinking, resulting in more real, meaningful, and productive writing. Conclusions and recommendations for further work in this area were included in the final chapter.
Subject Area
Rhetoric|Composition|British and Irish literature|Theater|Community colleges
Recommended Citation
Vierk, Janice Marie, "The use of pedagogy and theatre of the oppressed and interactive theatre exercises in the community college composition classroom" (1997). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9812363.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9812363