Contextual/Cultural Literacies

As I was reading this assignment, I felt the author was treating “cultures” as—what TMA 377B would define as—“text”. For students to be able to access these texts though, I think the literacies that need to be taught/established are more conceptual. Specifically, I think tolerance and open-mindedness are the actual literacies—especially in a theatre classroom. As the author discusses, the minority culture is significantly different than the Caucasian majority – I know from personal experience. However, if I want my students to explore and even celebrate these differences through theatre techniques and processes, they must first have a willingness to learn more and then a easiness to accept it.
I think the key to tolerance and open-mindedness is exposure so I would like to expose my students to an array of cultures, places, peoples, and backgrounds. I would also like to subtly implement through the entire class learning methods that minorities learn best with. If they are conditioned to learn that way, they would be more receptive to when I implement such methods. I would also like to teach them a respectful way of “questioning”. Because they would probably be exploring ideas, traditions, and values foreign to them, I would want their confusions, doubts, or worries to be addressed, but I want to make sure that they are always sensitive toward the culture being examined.