Description
Book SynopsisEncountering Texts represents the theory and praxis uncovered through an ongoing interdisciplinary arts-based critical pedagogy that engages students in critical self-reflection (disciplined, sustained thinking, requiring engagement) on difference. The Multicultural Theatre Project (MTP) is a dialogical encounter with literature through the dramatic arts. This book provides a blueprint for the multiple ways in which this enacted theory/method can be utilized as a high impact practice toward transformative learning. The significance of minority literature as fertile testing ground for raising and seeking to answer questions about difference is undisputed. To address this dynamic, this research utilizes Hans-Georg Gadamer's hermeneutical method of understanding to engage students in the interpretive process using theatre as methodology. Gadamer's concept, described as a fusion of horizons, provides a methodological approach by which students can bring their own effective history t
Trade Review«An innovative, exciting, and energizing study that introduces new models of transdisciplinary and transformative learning through arts based pedagogy. Theater becomes an important site of encounter and discovery of new modes of consciousness as well as new strategies for the classroom.»
(Wendy Martin, Professor of American Literature and American Studies, Claremont Graduate University)
«An innovative, exciting, and energizing study that introduces new models of transdisciplinary and transformative learning through arts based pedagogy. Theater becomes an important site of encounter and discovery of new modes of consciousness as well as new strategies for the classroom.»
(Wendy Martin, Professor of American Literature and American Studies, Claremont Graduate University)
Table of ContentsContents: Encountering Self – Encountering Texts: Rationale and Method – The University: Work Toward Wholeness? (In)Beyond the Classroom: Transformative Learning – Hans-Georg Gadamer’s Hermeneutics as Framework – «Minority» Literature as Decentering Frame – Praxis Matters: Embodying Texts. Theatre as Method for Encounter – Project Description and Overview – MTP Praxis: Medium for Encounter – Developing Story, Developing Students as Texts – Developing Story: Sample Playwriting – Arts-Based Critical Pedagogy: Strategies for the Classroom – Discovering Through Assessment.
