Overcoming self-doubt: Creating my dream syllabus

I have been working on creating this syllabus for days, but I have been thinking about it for years and especially during the last semester, in workshops and seminars as a Humanities Alliance graduate fellow. This was the first semester I was not teaching since I first became a teacher ten years ago. I didn’t even realize a whole decade had gone by teaching until I stopped. And perhaps only by stopping could I really think deeply about my teaching style, my pedagogical approach, and what teaching means to me. And perhaps only by stopping could I face the task of creating my ideal class.

AND…

what a class! An intro class in theatre, my area of expertise and more importantly, my love and passion. There are no department requirements and no text book. I can choose any texts I like, any approach to teaching that I want, any assignments and assessments… It is the perfect opportunity to design the class of my dreams and put into practice all the ideas I have had over my years teaching syllabi designed by others and to create for my students not only a safe and open learning environment, but one filled with content they will find fascinating.

BUT…

I never thought it would be so difficult and time-consuming! I have pages and pages of notes: readings, assessments, class activities… I have 7 or 8 samples from my friends. I have looked at the theatre season and chosen several non-expensive options. I have read articles about TBL (team-based learning) and planned out ways to build significant team based work in the classroom… I even mounted that ikea bookshelf we bought back in September so I could see the books I want to use clearly. What is the problem then?

WELL…

1. It is my first time not using a textbook, and it is taking me so long to think of the best texts to share… are they too long? Too hard? Too easy? How can I find balance? Should I minimize the reading and dedicate more time to practice and creative work?
2. I want to live up to my own expectations and make this class a fun, engaging (life-changing?) one; expectations that perhaps invite failure and seem impossible to fulfill. My objective is to expose students (maybe for the first time) to something I love so they fall in love with it too…
3. I have fifty students in the class. My classes are always small communities. We develop social connections, we each have space to express ourselves, we support each other. How can I develop that kind of communal feeling in a class of 50? Every time we discuss hands-on pedagogy, I imagine the kinds of classes I have had, with 20 or 30 students, where it’s not hard to learn the names, where everyone gets a chance to participate in the conversation. How do you manage to have 50 people engaged and participating actively?

SO…

Many index cards and some conversations later… puting this syllabus together has been like building a puzzle.

I am teaching theatre. Theatre is a communal art, and despite the large number of our troupe, I hope we will become a community by performing our own rituals in the classroom: warm up the bodies, the vocal chords, take up space, make claims, make eye-contact, embody ideas, characters, be fully present.

I am going to use team work, inspired by TBL, to experience the kind of collaboration and trust on each other that theatre making requires. Throughout the semester, each team will not only develop a final project (a theatre performance!) together, but they will also work together in assignments, responding to readings, etc. This will ensure that every student participates and will make the larger conversation manageable. 

I have overcome the pressure to include the greatest hits (a Greek tragedy, some Shakespeare, give them a clear timeline of theatre history…) in an effort to fight dominant Western discourses of canon that reinforce the invisibilization of oppressed and silenced artists/peoples/ideas. This is after all, and intro to theatre. I will focus on doing theatre and reading great plays, thinking always about the production and the life of the text on stage. I have divided the syllabus into modules to structure the semester, focusing on different aspects of theatre making: playwrighting, acting, directing… Each week, I will dedicate one class to theory, history, or play analysis (the page) and one class to practice (the stage). 

And I hope they have fun and learn and fall in love with theatre!