Performing or Stereotyping? Hot-Seating Drama-in-Education in Critical Times

• In Event: Acting Up: Dramatic Approaches for Socially Engaged Language and Literacy Education Online and in Person

Abstract

How does art serve as a voice for emergent bilingual learners (Author5 et al., 2017; Author5 et al., 2018; García, 2009)? Art is an expressive form that is simultaneously a “window and mirror” (Style, 1996). Dialogue, which may include storytelling and performance, is essential to language learning and critical inquiry. It is through art that we are able to access and honor authentic stories, lived experiences, and knowledge of diverse peoples. The arts, therefore, not only provide multiple entry points demanding complex problem-solving skills, but also provide tangible scaffolding for language learning and critical thinking. The arts call on students to draw from and contribute their cultural knowledge and linguistic background as they enhance their communication skills, as well as further cultural awareness for children and youth, through different forms of teaching and learning.

This interactive presentation focuses on how the arts, specifically multimodal literacies within drama-in-education, are being utilized in classrooms as an integral language and literacy approach (Gee, 2004; Jewitt & Kress, 2008; Kalantzis & Cope, 2012; Medina & Campano, 2006). A demonstration of reader’s theatre strategies will be provided, followed by a critical discussion of how this builds culturally responsive and critical thinking skills with students, both young students and teacher candidates in an education program. Reader’s theatre was developed as an efficient and effective way to present literature in dramatic form (Sloyer, 1982). Performing stories based on another culture is one way for students to become interested in and familiar with that culture and language.
‘Hotseating’ is when a student or teacher takes on the role of a character in a book and improvises the answers to questions posed by students in the classroom. Using hotseating in conjunction with reader’s theatre can further critical discussion of the story and provide more depth to the characters.

After viewing a film of students performing diverse stories of reader’s theater, audience members will briefly be taken through a process of how to introduce reader’s theatre to students and implement it in the classroom, including the role of the teacher as a facilitator, role distributions, how to create scripts from stories, and practical strategies to address limited time and space, hesitant or unmotivated students. The primary focus of the presentation will showcase a case study that explores the complexities of ‘hotseating’ characters when doing reader’s theatre. Specifically, data from a 6-month long ethnographic qualitative study in an elementary school, Arts, Literacies, and Languages: Culturally Responsive Education with Emergent Bilingual Learners (Author5, 2018), is highlighted where a white professor hotseats a Latinx character from a children’s book to further perspectives of children’s literacy practices. In this case study, the teacher candidates discuss how the hotseating strategy elucidates stereotypes of characters while at the same time addresses biases in the K-12 classroom. Applying a critical lens through the arts engages students through a wide range of literacies as they make meanings dependent on social, cultural and historical contexts (Ajayi, 2015).

Authors

• Amanda Claudia Wager, Vancouver Island University

• Allison Nicole Tucker, Lesley University