Amplify & Ignite: Creative Practice in and With Communities

Please make sure to add this session to your schedule if you intend to attend.

Communities of practice in drama education have been explored by Anderson & Freebody as sites that emphasize "the importance of integrating theory and practice to support the development of beginning teachers" (2012, p. 359). Professional organizations like the American Alliance for Theatre and Education (AATE), the NYC Arts in Education Roundtable, and the Educational Theatre Association (EDTA) consider their annual gatherings as a locus of professional development and networking, but in their relative infrequency, they provide only limited access to the potentiality of a true community of practice. So, drama educators often find themselves a department of one, set adrift to do whatever it is they do in the classroom without the benefit of a community of peers who can understand and support them in their work. They lack a true community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002; Wenger-Trayner, Fenton-O'Creevy, Hutchinson, Kubiak, & Wenger-Trayner, 2014; Wenger-Trayner & Wenger-Trayner, 2015; Wenger, 2020; and Tummons, 2022).

Through this workshop experience, drama educators will develop a community of practice through the implementation of a case narrative project, based on a format outlined by Norris, McCammon, & Miller in their text, Learning to Teach Drama: A Case Narrative Approach (2000). The main intent of the case narrative is to serve as a tool to assist the educator in better understanding their teaching practice and should be drawn from their own experience, offering the educator an opportunity to reflect on and examine a problem, dilemma, or crisis, or frame a new perspective that has occurred in their practice.

This workshop will move us through phases one and two of a three-phase process. In the session, participants will outline their own case narrative, share the outline with two peers, and then get formal feedback from each peer using a response protocol outlined in Norris, McCammon, & Miller's text in which they describe, analyze, and apply (2000, pp. 111-112). [paragraph break]1 - Describe: Read the assigned case narrative. Set a timer for five minutes and write a continuous response without censoring yourself to what you have read.2 -Analyze: Review what you wrote. Respond by uncovering the issues in the original narrative and make connections to educational theory and the teaching of drama.3 -Apply: Review both the initial writing (describe) and your initial analysis. Write concretely what the teacher might do to extend these ideas into practice. This writing could be in the form of a lesson plan, a list of teacher activities, or a general set of statements on the teacher's stance. Application is the goal, so you need to provide the teacher with actionable recommendations grounded in your teaching experience and what you know from research or literature. [paragraph break]In this way, each participant will receive actionable recommendations (interventions) from two peers. This initial workshop will be followed in one month's time with a Zoom check-in where each participant can report back about the intervention(s) they implemented and consider next steps.