{"title":"Happy Blackboards: Anti-Thematic Script Analysis, or How to Teach Beyond \"Themes\"","authors":"Mackenzie L. Bounds","doi":"10.1353/tt.2024.a920467","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: Since the word \"theme\" consistently warrants redefinition, it fails to find felicitous, longstanding meaning in theatre pedagogy. In response, I have found that asking students to identify a play's \"topics,\" \"questions,\" and \"arguments\" instead of its \"themes\" has saved a great deal of teaching time and student confusion—confusion that the word \"theme\" inevitably carries with it. Through this change, not only have my students found a much deeper engagement with the assigned plays, but the quality of the dramaturgical and practical work they produce in response to their script analyses is at a much higher level than before.","PeriodicalId":209215,"journal":{"name":"Theatre Topics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Theatre Topics","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tt.2024.a920467","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract: Since the word "theme" consistently warrants redefinition, it fails to find felicitous, longstanding meaning in theatre pedagogy. In response, I have found that asking students to identify a play's "topics," "questions," and "arguments" instead of its "themes" has saved a great deal of teaching time and student confusion—confusion that the word "theme" inevitably carries with it. Through this change, not only have my students found a much deeper engagement with the assigned plays, but the quality of the dramaturgical and practical work they produce in response to their script analyses is at a much higher level than before.