Classroom – David Orace Kelly

Censorship, 1st Amendment, and Copyright In School Theatre

There is an interesting clash between giving free speech to every student and limiting that speech within the public and private school sectors. As an arts teacher, I am continually thankful that the First Amendment protects the right to free expression, however, this rights is not absolute and may be limited. Schools are one of the most potent examples of where First Amendment limitations can be found because there is a compelling interest in maintaining an appropriate educational environment. Teaching theatre, I continually keep this in mind when I select a production – due to copyright laws we can’t alter the content, so we need to fully accept it as it is.

The Supreme Court has established that schools have the authority to regulate student speech in order to maintain an appropriate educational environment. In Tinker v. Des Moines (1969), the court established the “Tinker standard,” which states that schools may only regulate student speech if it will substantially disrupt the educational process or invade the rights of others. Where do disruptions to occur? The content of a play can be disruptive or inappropriate for all viewers. Many early theatre makers or non-theatre-school-administrators, can be tempted to alter the text of a play (e.g. switching out a swear word or changing any words to effect a character interpretation).

The Tinker standard was increasingly defined in Morse v. Frederick (2007), the court held that schools may prohibit student speech that promotes illegal drug use, even if it is not disruptive. This expanded the power of schools to regulate speech. The cascading impact of this is that the content of what a school chooses to present in their arts programs. This could be a concern in the arts because the arts are founded on free speech; their power rests in the ability to take on a wide range of topics and create conversation within the community. Arts can change the world but they need the forum to do so. Though, one could argue that the voices on topics not ready for school can wait for a venue outside of graduation – these are also the voices of the future and the students that I work with are talented, trustworthy, insightful, and thoughtful. It’s an interesting line to respect and work with as an arts administrator.

By contrast, private schools are not bound by the First Amendment, as they are not government institutions. However, many private schools have policies in place that protect the free expression rights of their students, and these policies may be enforceable under state law.

Venues outside of graduation are not the only avenue for student expression. In Mahanoy v. B.L. (2018), the court held that a school cannot punish a student’s off-campus speech, even if it is disruptive to the educational process, unless the school can demonstrate that it has a reasonable expectation of the speech reaching the school environment. Students could use their free expression, within the arts, outside of the school gates.

The purpose of education

After working in education for nearly two decades, I have seen many different educational structures. I started education in a summer camp. I instructed students and served as director, choreographer, and designer for dozens of productions. I built a middle school drama program that was centered on the student experience and their voice. I taught internationally in both Morocco and Bahrain – I taught a wider range of subjects that I have ever – teaching English, Theatre, Social Studies, debate, and STEAM. I now am the Director of the Performing Arts Center at a major private school in Mississippi. I have found that the purpose of education is multifaceted and can vary depending on the individual, their goals, and the society in which they live. However, there are some common themes that emerge when considering the purpose of education.

One of the primary purposes of education is to prepare individuals for successful participation in society. I found this to be true in every school I taught at. However, what the preparation looked like, varied widely. This included providing the skills and knowledge necessary for employment (often as defined by the parents, rather than the students), as well as the ability to think critically and solve problems (typically what students enjoyed the most). Education can also help to promote social cohesion and a sense of community by teaching students about the values, customs, and beliefs of the society in which they live.

Another important aspect of education is personal development. Education can help individuals to develop their own interests and passions, and to become more self-aware and self-confident. Any good teacher does this side-by-side with their lessons. Great teachers teach personal development, while also teaching their subject. It can also provide a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment, as well as a sense of purpose and direction in life.

Education also has the potential to promote social mobility and equality. Most recently, I have found that the students in my classroom have a limited view about what social mobility (or often social-stability) looks like. Students are often set on being doctors, lawyers, and business owners. Education can also help to reduce discrimination and promote inclusivity by providing a common understanding and respect for diversity. This aspect of inclusivity has been very prevalent in my current school, every student is truly valued, treated equally, and given the same opportunities. Regardless of a high percentage of students receiving financial aid, the school removes economic boundaries in every way possible.

In addition to these practical and personal benefits, education can also have more abstract, philosophical purposes. It can help individuals to understand and appreciate the world around them, as well as the different cultures and perspectives of others. Education can also encourage creativity and the free exchange of ideas, which can lead to new innovations and progress. This is where the creative classroom is most valuable. Within my drama classes, students get to experience theatre arts within a hands-on application for both design and performance based tasks. These opportunities come to fruition as they produce shows that engage the community in dialogue.

Assessment of Literature Ability

This one lesson activity is conceived of as being an INITIAL ASSESSMENT to analyze student ability at the start of an IGCSE literature course. It easily could be adapted to other subjects and grades in the upper school.

OBJECTIVE: To identify literary elements within a text for further analysis

BELL RINGER: 1 minute: Name as many literary elements as possible (such as metaphor or simile)

PARTNER WORK: 10 minutes: – share your list with your partner. Define any common elements together. Define any unique elements on your own. Use your combined experience to craft a shared definition. Use a dictionary as needed.

(Informal teacher assessment here – observing the wealth of and accuracy of knowledge within the class)

GROUP ACTIVITY: 15 minutes: Share one element and the definition, aloud with the class (practice presentation of information). Individual students note any elements they did not have on their list, note definitions. Students should be left with a list of literary elements.

INDIVIDUAL ACTIVITY: Formative assessment. 20 minutes: Students are given one of four or five (depending on group size) short texts (a paragraph, a poem, for example – ideally from the syllabus for future scaffolding). Students, annotate their unique text in the following way. The teacher should provide a live demonstration of this – or at least an exemplar of annotation.

– Highlight any literary element

– Annotate a description of the element

– Make any connections, in writing to the text as a whole or to other literary elements

FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT: Students turn in work from the class. Count literary elements with correct definitions. Note current knowledge of students.

NEXT CLASS: SMALL GROUP WORK: Pass back formative assessments: Students connect in groups (based on text) and make note of their work and compare to others. They review their understanding in contrast to others. Students create one large annotated (collaborative poster) on their text. Students present their work to the class. Students can then craft an essay in response to their text. Use a past paper question to guide the in-class text. This becomes a second formative assessment looking for essay structure and response style.

THE ASSESSMENT WILL HELP present the learners’ level of understanding with factual information (identification of literary elements in a text) and the application of that understanding (composing an essay).
WITH THIS INFORMATION instructional decisions will be made to teach (or not) the identification of literary elements, textual annotation, essay composition.
LEARNERS WITHOUT THE ABILITY will be identified from the first ten minutes of class. They could get, elements highlighted but not identified (or the reverse “look for a comparison”). Learners may need ESL accommodations (such as mother tongue translation). Learners may need to be referred to a learning support team. This two day assessment will identify a range of skills that can be scaffolded. It will also provide support to the student through the collaborative elements.

Bell Ringers and Exit Tickets

The idea there is that the start of every class is the same with the Bell Ringer activity and the close of the class is always one of five activities. I leave it open because depending on the class, different closing activities may be appropriate. Tradition is important – and it creates closure that the students can expect and count on. The ‘shout out’ is nice because it teaches students to be complimentary of others and recognize their academic talents. I limit to it to academic activities in class: “I like the way Ali identified his personal connection to the metaphor in the poem.”

How to Evaluate Memorization

Memorization is a key skill in theatre and in life – but some kids need more or less support. Sometimes it even depends on their ability level. In my experience one point for each word becomes tricky – different students have different word counts and different memorization challenges in a particular script. Instead, I look at levels of memorization. It helps me direct student support for follow up.

Here is a general rubric that I like to use:

“Top Marks” – 10 points for being Word Perfect

“Job Done” – 7-9 points for being basically word perfect. Maybe some transposition of words or dropped words. Perhaps a missed sentence (depending on length).

“Support Needed” 4 – 6 points, student missed more than a sentence, called for line or looked at script (1 – 3 times).

“Significant Revision Required” – 1-3 points for being unable to complete memorization or in need of more than three prompts.

I’ll assign a Student AD or SM to make notes on any missing or incorrect words by highlighting a revision script for the actors or by making line notes specifically for each actor.

Additionally, it is important to:

Give students memorization tools before giving them a memorization assignment (or make sure they have experience with memorization).
- Tools include: writing and re-writing the lines by hand (speaking aloud while re-writing can also be helpful)
- Writing cue lines on one side of an index card and the full line on the other side. Students can study like flash cards. Again, speaking aloud is preferred.
- Memorizing line by line or sentence by sentence in what I call the A, AB, BC, CD, method so that what has been memorized gets linked to what will be memorized and the text is evenly memorized throughout.
- Physical cues within text. Students can connect physical action such as blocking or character gesture to pieces of text. These gestures are fully implemented as part of performance whenever possible.
- Sound cues in text. It helps students to use auditory clues such as alliteration, onomatopoeia, rhyming, and rhythm to memorize a text. Sometimes it takes a study of these poetic elements to cue into the memorization.
- Memorization to a song. Use an established song melody and fit the spoken words to that song. Play the song again and again.
Give students ample time to memorize their texts and scaffold the memorization so that it is not all due at one time. I often tie memorization deadlines to the rehearsal following completion of blocking for a scene. (Alternating in sets of four for rehearsal: 1) Table read and discussion of scene; 2) Blocking of scene, on book; 3) run of scene memorized blocking and lines; 4) working of the scene, “stop, work, fix, go”.

AUTOMATED or AUTHENTIC ACTING

Does acting in acting class need to be authentic to the student? I recently came across this question in a professional forum.

Certainly authenticity is good – especially in theatre. It is a creative process; the product is best when it is personal to the actor. However – I contend that this may only be the desired end product.

A novice actor needs skills to build from – guidance even clear direction to develop with. Ready, set, create… GO! Open ended creation can be difficult. Giving a student a framework, blocking, gesture, vocal placement, clear direction is not only good teaching, it is a real-world occurrence. In doing so, the teacher is supporting the skill level of the student and scaffolding from that point forward. Yes in theatre education, there should equally be as many opportunities to collaborate, devise, and create in an open-ended forum. These are key skills that theatre can main-line to the student; these later skills, require a prerequisite of experience to build from.

Consider instruction in English Language Arts. In middle school and high school, writing instruction is often prescribed. A teacher may say, “use these sign post words” or “use a first person voice”; they may further say submit your paper in 12 pt font and MLA format. And in the execution of that prescription, the student learns the structure, the form, the style required and then can learn to write in that mode authentically. But, their first prescribed may not be authentic to the student.

I contend that the instruction of an acting student does not need to be much different. I am curious to see what other teachers of theatre may think on this point.

This approach of prescribed movements and highly directed or choreographed work could also be described as an “outside-in” style of acting. Physically based styles are widely used around the world. Included in this would be the Lazzo of the Fly from Commedia and the stylized movement and voice of Kabuki. Here are some examples.

You can see in the Lazzo, the movements are very planned, even choreographed in response to the music.

Here you can see an example of a planned combat scene in Kabuki. It has been done in this exact prescribed style for the past 400 years.

Respect in Teaching

Research: Parent Teacher Conferences

Youth Theater Needs Lessons – not simply games

I’ve been working in the field of youth theater for the past decade. I find that when it comes to training acting skills and getting specific with young actors about the skills they are learning such as voice, speech, physicality, using objectives, and general analysis of a character plot and given circumstances, Drama games do not cut it. Drama or improvisation games are good for general, unspecific, and inferred skills that actors use every day in theater. However, to break through that and actually transfer knowledge in an explicit way, Young actors need formative lessons that are equivalent to a musician playing a piece of music. Similarly, you cannot train a classical musician through jazz improvisation. Drama or improvisation games are good. But, I do not rely on them anyway to actually teach my students. Drama and improvisation games are good for days when I want to depart from a lesson sequence. Yes, fun is essential in learning and especially in a creative discipline such as theater. However, it is difficult to engage student voice and ask students to articulate what they have learned in a drama game. Learning should be based on formative lessons with specific skills that are being practiced in improvisation or a script.

A Case for Playwriting and Supporting Standards in Education

What are standards in education?

Briefly, standards are agreed upon learning points in specific disciplines that are specific to a grade level and the skills that the average student in that grade should acquire. Standards can be found in every content area from English and Math to Physical Education and Theatre Arts. There are different groups that have organized and authored standards. In Washington State there are the Essential Academic Learning Requirements (EALR) that are comprehensive for every discipline in Washington State Schools. Nationally, there are the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for reading, writing, and mathematics. These standards have widely been adapted across the states so that the education of one child is (ideally) the same as the education of another child in a different part of the country. In general every public school and many private schools have adapted the use of the CCSS into the regular curriculum. There are also National Standards for the Arts that are comprehensive for all grades, K – 12, and the four major artistic disciplines of Theatre, Dance, Music, and Fine Arts. Given the movement to standardize the content of the classrooms across the country it is a best practice to, at the very least, integrate the national standards into the local standards of the classroom.

How do teachers use standards?

Most importantly, standards do not tell teachers what content to use for their instruction. Standards are simply a list of skills that students should develop. For example, when studying plot structure, the teacher may ask the students to read a grade level appropriate book or craft a narrative that includes essential plot points. The teacher may integrate a historical lesson about the Fraytag Pyramid or use a modern construct such as the five and eight part story structure.

Standards help to measure student performance. They do not need to be summative (resulting in a numerical grade). These measurements can be formative (descriptive of the student’s work) in either a formal or informal application from the student, peers of the student, or the teacher. That is to say, students should be made aware of the standard and be asked to evaluate their work in the context of the standard. They will gain two important things from this. First, the students will be accountable for their own learning. Second, they will not be caught off-guard when that standard reappears in another format or when the instructor discusses their work in the context of the standard.

Using standards is only a small part of being a great teacher. It is still up to the teacher to fill the gaps left in the framework that the standard provides. Standards are benchmarks on the roadmap to learning. There may need to be alterations, backtracking, fast-forwarding, or absolute disregarding of the standards to make sure that the learning of each student is addressed.

Why use standards?

The arts continually fight to be justified in the context of traditional education. By utilizing standards at the state and national levels for both the arts and the areas of overlap in the common core, teachers and artists can justify the existence of arts programing in a school. This is especially important today when arts programing is cut and when often teachers with low qualifications to teach art are at the helm of a dwindling arts program.

Second, standards are used to clarify and support the education of each student. Think of each standard in the same way that you would think of a painter learning the primary colors, or a ballet dancer learning proper alignment, or a drummer learning to count the rhythm, or an actor learning the difference between stage left and stage right. These are all basic standards in the arts. You can think of standards as the building blocks of knowledge, the rules of the art form, that help artists create.

As it is well known, one must learn the rules to break the rules. Artists are no exception. Standards are the rules that the creative spirit can use or break to create new and interesting pieces of art.

How does playwriting fit into all of this?

Writing a play is the ultimate task in writing. It requires the author to be both creative genius and literary technician. The CCSS addresses both aspects of writing, though it does more heavily cover the technical aspects of writing well. The playwright must learn to tell a story, develop a character, use contrasting points of view, follow the syntax and format of a play, use established writing structures, and most importantly follow the arduous process of writing, rewriting, revising, peer editing, critiquing, and then writing again. These are all found in the common core state standards.