Incite/Insight Summer 2018 Incite Insight 2018 Summer 5 | Page 6

6 Incite/Insight Lesson Plan Exploration Summer/Early Fall 2018 Relevant Learning is Crucial to Student Success A s educators of any domain, we often hear from our students asking, “How will I ever use this?” Truthfully, they pose a really great question. In a general sense, how will my theater students benefit from playing slightly varied rounds of “Whoosh” for the hundredth time? Is this really relevant to the basic theories of acting? While I do feel strongly that group warm-up activities are essential to activating creativity and developing an ensemble, it gave me pause when one of my most committed theater students came to me at the end of last year asking how playing warm-up games are relevant to her when her professional aspiration is to be a doctor. This question required some deep soul searching and reflection of my teaching practice because my knee-jerk reaction was that as a theater educator, I have failed. This question launched a personal journey to better help my students develop an understanding that the educational value of theater is universal, regardless of professional ambitions. I believe that personal AND cultural forces shape artistic communication. Therefore, the arts, in turn, shape the diverse cultures of past and present society. One of the lessons I created in this endeavor explored the theme of privilege using Image Theater based on scenarios devised by the students. The objective was to help students synthesize the causes and consequences of privilege through brainstorming and by Jay Gerlach image work. The primary resources for this lesson came from Michael Rohd’s book Theater for Community, Conflict, and Dialogue and Making the Leap: Theater of Empowerment A Practical Handbook for Creative Drama Work with Young People by Sara Clifford and Anna Herrmann. The warm-up consisted of a series exercises using the body to create nonverbal frozen images as a way of telling a story. Students observing the extemporized simulation would respond to prompts such as, “What relationships do you see? Does one person have more power than the other? Do you see any examples of cause and effect in this image? Wh