Applied Theater Adolescent English Learners and the Performance

Applied Theater, Adolescent English Learners and the Performance of Literacy Jerrold Frank English Language Officer U. S. Embassy, Moscow

Four Move for Deepening Literacy Production… Context Building Narrative Action Poetic Action and Reflective Action

Context Building… • Sound-tracking texts • Freeze-framing the written word

Narrative Action: Moving the story forward… • Expert meetings about content and issues • Interview pairs about main and peripheral ideas • Hot seating characters and readers • He said/She said

Poetic Action: Representing and symbolizing structures and concepts… • Forum theater: Public revision • Flashback/Flash forward: Narrative Points of view

Reflective action: Looking forward, backward, and inward with texts • Tapping into readers’ reactions • Spaces between characters’ motivations and rationales • Corridors of readers’ responses

Branching beyond The Giving Tree • What are some multiple perspectives (written or implied) this text affords? • What are the relationships and tensions that invite unpacking or extending? • Are there “unseen scenes” or peripheral incidents worthy of exploration? • Whose are the marginal voices that could be heard through dramatic activity? • What are the hard to answer ethical questions this text evokes? • What are the assumptions and easy answers that theater could productively muddy?

Resources… • • • frankjj@state. gov www. facebook. com/ELOMoscow www. facebook. com/russia. usembassy www. facebook. com/americanenglishatstate www. americanenglish. state. gov/ebooks www. americanenglishwebinars. com www. coursera. org www. futurelearn. com www. novoed. com www. edx. org

Upcoming MOOCs… • English for Business and Entrepreneurship: May and November 2016 • English for Journalism: August 2016 and February 2017 • English for Career Development: November 2016 and April 2017 • English for Media Literacy: April and October 2017 • English for STEM Fields: June and October 2017

References… Murray, B. , Salas, S. , and Ni Thoghdha, M. 2015. Applied Theatre, Adolescent English Learners, and the Performance of Literacy In: English Teaching Forum Volume 53, Number 2

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