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2007Siegel

Performance Studies at CCCC
By Fred Siegel
siegelf@drexel.edu

In 2005, Fishman, Lunsford, McGregor, and Otuteye argue in their award-winning essay, “Performing Writing, Performing Literacy” (2005) that ideas from the field in which I have my degree, Performance Studies, can be used with good results in my adopted field, Composition. They gave me the idea to attend this years’ CCCC with a special mission. I would go to as many presentations as I could that dealt with performance. To my delight, I found quite a few.

Mary Juzwik’s: “Teaching Ethos Performed: The Moral Uses of Oral Narrative in Classroom Interaction” (D22)

Mary Juzwik’s presentation, “Teaching Ethos Performed: The Moral Uses of Oral Narrative in Classroom Interaction” (D22) considered the act of teaching as a kind of improvisational performance. Specifically, she was concerned with the way teachers use narratives to develop teacher ethos—in what ways stories we tell make us seem moral, reasonable, and worthy of students’ attention and trust. Juzwik examined a transcript of a seventh grade class and explained what types of narratives (personal, hypothetical, vicarious) and other rhetorical devices (parallelism, gesture, intonation) the teacher, Ms. Gomez, used. She suggested that a teachers’ performance of self is worthy of further examination, and might be incorporated into teacher training.

Tamara Thomas: “Seeing Me: Choreopoems and the ‘Presencing’ of the Black Body” (G07)

Tamara Thomas considers her presentation of self as a black woman in her performance, “Seeing Me: Choreopoems and the ‘Presencing’ of the Black Body” (G07). Thomas, a fan of the choreopoems of Ntozake Shange, advocates the use of multigenred texts in which, particularly for African American students, the body is inevitably central. What I find most exciting about her work is how well she embodies her ideas. Her presentation, which raises questions about code-switching, among other things, both discusses and demonstrates. And at a conference where most people stand behind podiums and read from papers, it is refreshing to see a polished performance that exemplifies the issues rather than talking about them.

Marvin Diogenes: “Unplanning the How: Lessons for Writers from Improvisational Comedy” (H27)

The next performance on my list caused me a certain amount of anxiety because, from its title in the online program, it seemed almost exactly the same the as the one I would present later that afternoon. (And I thought I was so original.) As it turned out, Marvin Diogenes’ “Unplanning the How: Lessons for Writers from Improvisational Comedy” (H27) covered some of the same ground I would cover later, but with a different emphasis. Diogenes explains how games from the field of improvisational comedy can be used as invention strategies similar to those advocated by Peter Elbow and others. Diogenes explains, as an example, the “Alphabet Game”: players must perform a spontaneous scene in which the first word of each new line must begin with a subsequent letter in the alphabet. (Example: “Andrea, those are nice tennis shoes.” “Boy, you are such a flirt.” “Can’t you just take my compliments gracefully, Andrea?”) Diogenes points out that concentrating on a task such as finding a word that begins with a certain letter of the alphabet forces the performer/writer to think in a different way than one usually would, and it might foster greater creativity. It would be hard to refute the idea that such a process would enable people to generate texts that they could not have come up with themselves. In addition, he argues that spending time on games such as this one changes the dynamics of the classroom in positive ways.

Fred Siegel: “Writing and Performing Identities: Uses of Improvisation in the Creative Nonfiction Class” (J28)

For the record, my presentation “Writing and Performing Identities: Uses of Improvisation in the Creative Nonfiction Class” (J28) covered some of the same ideas as Diogenes’ presentation, with an emphasis on games that could be used in a creative nonfiction class. I argued that there were four uses for improvisational games in writing classes: as invention strategies, as models for collaboration, for building cohesiveness, and to promote understanding of specific concepts in rhetoric. Because of the intimacy of the room, we had the advantage of being able to get up and try some exercises.

John Peterson, Scott Herndon, Takeo Rivera, Jen Weiss and Rhina Daquela “Improv/ed Writing: Performance and the Play of Composition” (K12)

The next event on my schedule was very exciting for me, since “Improv/ed Writing: Performance and the Play of Composition” (K12) was a whole panel based on improvisational performance issues. It is worth mentioning most of the presenters have connections to Stanford, Andrea Lunsford’s home base. In some ways the panel reminded me of Fishman, Lunsford, MacGregor and Otuteye’s aforementioned award-winning essay, in that the essay has two student co-authors and the panel featured presentations by two students, one undergraduate and one in high school.

John Peterson was up first, with his presentation “Improv/ed Writing: Performed Revision and Re-invested Emotion.” Peterson discussed some of the ways in which improvisation can be used in the revision process. Of particular interest was his “15 minute elevator ride” exercise, which involved spontaneous narration of “what you’re working on,” to three different audiences: 1) a leader in your profession, 2) a student, and 3) your mother. This is a good way of dealing with the issue of audience using an improvisational performance strategy. Peterson concluded by reading a list of ten reasons for using improvisational performance strategies in the classroom, including breaking barriers, offering instruction in alternate learning styles, and invigorating long processes such as writing research papers.

Next, Scott Herndon presented “Mandated Oral Space and the Play of Spoken Word.” Herndon discussed some of the difficulties of using performance-based pedagogy in a college classroom. How, Herndon asks, does one “force” students to be creative? How do we compel reticent students to get up in front of the class and talk while simultaneously promoting the core values of the egalitarian writing workshop? Of course, this problem exists in non-performance oriented classes as well. (A classic example is the problem of freewriting, and how some instructors require it and then ask students to turn it in. Just how free is that?)

Herndon brought along his student, spoken word poet Takeo Rivera, who further engaged some of Herndon’s ideas in a short paper comparing classroom space to the panopticon, Jeremy Bentham’s 18th century prison. Students, he argued, can be analogous to prison inmates who are monitored in an improvisational space. This comparison is a nasty pill to swallow for those of us who do what we can to have a friendly atmosphere of cooperation. Nevertheless, since this suggestion comes from a student, perhaps we ought to consider the possibility that some of them see us as jailers. Even so, however, both Herndon and Rivera see positive things in the use of spoken word performance in the classroom.

Finally, Jen Weiss, who works in urban education at the Graduate Center at CUNY, teamed up with a high school student, spoken word artist Rhina Daquela for her presentation “Moving from the Stage to the Page: Urban Spoken Word and New Journalism.” Starting from the idea that everyone has poems or lyrics in them, the pair showed a way of approaching the composition of an essay. First, Daquela performed her poem, “Trapped in School,” and then Weiss and Daquela had a conversation about how this poem, which was originally written for a poetry slam, was later revised into an essay. They took a “new journalism” approach, which incorporates some elements of fiction such as enhanced use of dialogue and first person point of view.

Linda Miller and Beth Seetch “Performing Identity and the Pedagogy of the Spectator,” (N03)

The last panel I saw, “Performing Identity and the Pedagogy of the Spectator,” (N03) also incorporated performances by students and a former student. Linda Miller of Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA—a school that has an active group of Performance Studies people in various departments—began with a performance piece entitled “You Can Never Pretend the Power is Not There.” The piece is a collage of short scenes and monologues about academic honesty, grading, and student/teacher dynamics using the words of various students and teachers around the Muhlenberg campus. While these are not usually the criteria by which one evaluates academic presentations, I can report that I saw a polished performance that transformed the room in innovative ways.

After the performance piece, Beth Seetch from Lafayette College in Easton, PA, spoke on the use of film and performance in tutor instruction. Seetch then shared the results of a survey about the performance piece we had just seen, which was presented at Lafayette. The presentation was deemed effective by both the tutors in Seetch’s Writing Center and the freshman students in attendance. Both subgroups saw the piece as relevant, and as representative of their own concerns. Furthermore, it was felt that teachers and students should see this presentation because it would give each group insight into the other.

Finally, Miller spoke about the composition of the performance we saw earlier. She collaborated with two current students, Ashley Wallace and Benjamin Shaw, and a former student (and current Peer-Tutor Coordinator) Adam Pinti, and explained how the presentation was put together using documentary theater techniques similar to those of Anna Deveare Smith. Miller’s students went around campus and recorded students and teachers responses to questions and the resulting script is a collage of genuine utterances. She points out that to use these techniques is to perform a kind of research, but she also points out that this sort of research has its difficulties. For example, characters admit to various kinds of plagiarism, but in the performance you don’t know who is behind the admission. Somewhere there are videotapes of people admitting to plagiarism, as well as other problematic things. Issues of confidentiality and permissions can emerge in unpleasant ways.

Strand Reflections and Conclusions

Now that I have had a chance to consider my “Performance Studies at CCCC” mission, I can see a few trends. First, there is growing interest in incorporating “spoken word” poetry into the field of composition. These works, which are composed specifically to be performed, can also be used as one part of a multi-modal text or as prewriting or the first draft of a more conventionally structured text. These sorts of performances are of interest because some students bring to them a high level of commitment. Second, there is an interest in improvisational performance as a part of the process of composing texts. To do this sort of work requires familiarity with the sorts of exercises that are used in acting contexts. See the works of Viola Spolin and Keith Johnstone for background. (By the way, some improvisation is discussed in the context of “spoken word,” however, in most cases spoken word performances are written beforehand, even though the manner of presentation might be improvisational.) Third, it is possible to consider the act of teaching and all classroom interaction using a performance framework. In addition to Juzwik’s presentation, see articles by R. Keith Sawyer (2004) and Shady Cosgrove (2005). Finally, there is an emerging idea that a performance, such as that of the students at Muhlenberg, can be the culmination of a research project. And, if the second year curriculum at Stanford is any harbinger, we may see a reemergence of interest in oral presentation of research in general.

Works Cited

Note: The author wishes to thank all of those who have presented on performance for their stimulating ideas and to apologize to any performance scholars who I might have missed. A special thank you to Scott Herndon and John Peterson, my informants at Stanford, for putting me wise to the innovative programs there.

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2007 CCCC Reviews Index
2007 CCCC Reviews Overivew