Heather's Teaching- Post 6

It has been good for me to start looking at my lessons in terms of texts and literacies. I’m still not sure if I’ve fully wrapped my head around the concepts, but I’m surely getting better! When you look at everything you use in the theatre classroom as a text, things change! Everything has more you can do with it, more you can learn from it, and more you can teach with it. I think for me as a teacher, when I sit down to write a lesson plan, I need to think of everything I’m using to teach first, then I need to think of how I can use that to enhance my lesson even further. I think when I look at my lessons in terms of texts and literacies worlds of ideas will open up and my students will get so much more out of their learning experiences. When you look at everything as a text, and then find ways to explore and understand it, there are millions of possibilities. It’s really rather exciting. We’ve been trying to do this with our playwriting unit, and I think it has really helped us. When I look at our activities as a text that can be explored and learned from, rather than just a ‘hook’ there is so much to teach, there is so much for the students to understand, and there is so much more to have fun with. As I continue to think about and grasp the concept of texts and literacies, I think my classroom will become a more rewarding place and I will become a better teacher.