Kirsten - Reading Response 1

As I read this chapter I realized more and more the idea that a performance or presentation can be text just as much as a book about theatre. Pieces of art, a monologue, a poem, all of these are examples of a text. They are also just as valuable to a student as a text book on theatre history. But we need to give them a reason to look at the “text” through a different lens, just like the teacher in our reading had her students look at the play through a ‘Dramaturgical’ lens. I think this is so beneficial because the students have the ability to look at different texts in a different way. That makes them think a lot differently than just analyzing the text in the same functionalist way. It makes them think harder and also it makes it more applicable to their lives. I want my classroom to have that same application. My whole classroom will be set up in a way that they feel they can take something away with them, whatever field of work they decided to go into. Theatre has the ability to change people’s lives and if we teach them to look critically at different texts, they will obtain a skill they can use throughout the rest of their lives.