High school is a time for powerful learning, and theatre instruction can provide powerful lessons—for the stage and for life. With teens on the cusp of adulthood and capable of grappling with complex themes and issues, theatre is an ideal medium for critical inquiry into their values, beliefs, and feelings. In Temporary Stages, Jo Beth Gonzalez illustrates one approach to critical learning through theatre that harnesses its full educational potential.
Jo Beth Gonzalez calls her approach the Critically Conscious Production-Oriented Classroom (CCPOC). The CCPOC offers a context for students to build, extend, and deepen their notions of critical thinking and expands the boundaries of your teaching. Temporary Stages includes three case studies of how Gonzalez makes the CCPOC work in diverse aspects of her theatre program, including:
- practicing democracy in theatre design
- spotlighting oppression in play production
- addressing controversial topics in writing and performance.
With these thematic backdrops, Gonzalez gives you not only clear guidelines about how to teach students in the CCPOC way, but also how to model critical awareness by questioning traditional assumptions about casting, play selection, design, staging, and directing. She also offers insight into how reflective writing increases the potency of the learning in the CCPOC.
Make your classroom more than a place to create theatre. Take your students beyond the edge of the stage and into a space where they question the world. Read Temporary Stages and discover an approach to teaching that fosters critical awareness as teacher, student, and script intersect.
