Community through Discourse: Reconceptualizing Introduction to Theatre

For most college theatre departments, non-majors account for the bulk of the student constituency. Many of these non-majors enroll in an Introduction to Theatre course in order to satisfy a general education requirement. Teachers of Intro face multiple challenges: to meet the curricular expectations of their department and institution, to present material in ways that engage often-reluctant students, and to take advantage of their own scholarly interests and expertise. When designing such a course, we often attempt to balance reading assignments, written work, and exams. We carefully select textbooks that suit our needs as instructors and plays that we believe intersect in some way with our students' values, passions, or cultural backgrounds. In short, we prepare for the course by defining assignments and assessment—texts and tests. But in doing so, we should also craft learning objectives by asking ourselves the following questions: What do we want our students to know by the end of the semester? What skill sets should they acquire in the process? And, perhaps most importantly, what can the study of theatre ultimately offer non-majors?

At Baruch College, a senior college of the City University of New York (CUNY), the theatre program has experimented with a particular learning objective—to improve students' oral communication skills—in its general education theatre course. Designated a Communication Intensive Course (CIC) as part of a university-wide Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) initiative, Introduction to Theatre Arts (THE 1041C) is exemplary of efforts at Baruch to find a place for oral communication within WAC pedagogy. The course not only attempts to give students an overview of theatrical literature, history, and practice, but also to help them develop competencies critical to their success in college and beyond graduation.

The art of theatre is based on a reciprocal exchange between actor and spectator; therefore, theatre studies offers an ideal forum in which to explore the means and methods of effective oral and written communication. As Nancy Kindelan argues, "Theatre programs are exemplary models of what GenEd reformers call the 'optimal learning environment' because their methods speak to the literacies and skills essential to the education of an undergraduate. . . . [one that] encourages cooperation among students, encourages active learning, gives prompt feedback, emphasizes time on task, communicates high expectations, and respects diverse talents and ways of learning" (72). Indeed, the collaborative nature of the theatrical endeavor has a unique potential to build community and foster cooperation among undergraduates, and THE 1041C takes advantage of this opportunity.

The course also addresses learning objectives at the institutional level by offering students the tools they need to engage effectively in intellectual discourse throughout their undergraduate careers. Theoretical work in English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) pedagogy, particularly the notion of "insider" versus "outsider" status within discourse communities, illuminates how a communication-based Introduction to Theatre course empowers students by helping them achieve expertise in a particular mode of discourse within a single semester. The classroom becomes a space—a community—in which students discover, practice, and, hopefully, participate in a new discourse. Eleanor Kutz, who defines discourse communities as "communities where people share ways of talking or writing as well as interests, beliefs, and values," observes that ESOL students typically feel like "outsiders to a learning enterprise" in the classroom (75, 77). Significantly, Kutz identifies discourse, not language, as the factor that positions students as outsiders. At the beginning of the semester, this is how many of Baruch's students—both native and non–native English speakers—feel in relation to theatre. Because they do not have a vocabulary for theatre, they feel estranged from it and unable to judge or assess it with confidence. Students not only have difficulty distinguishing between theatre and other modes of live entertainment (sporting events, concerts); they also conflate theatre and cinema in their classroom conversations. We contend that Introduction to Theatre can offer students a way to enter social and intellectual discourse communities from which they might typically feel estranged, and, especially when the course requires students to practice discourse from the very first...