There Is Enough Time

What is it about?

Proleptic-ethnodrama is a critical multicultural pedagogy that engages all students simultaneously in interrogating the cultural sources for texts and the cultural implications of texts for them and for others. Through several straightforward questions (What story is the writer telling? How is the writer telling that story? How would we tell that story?) and a series of dramatic enactments (Boal, 1985), students stage conflicts in the text, explore the cultural factors informing the writing choices of the writer, and reflect on their own perspectives regarding the sources for these conflicts. In the process, students piece together social systems and relations of power and the role that writers and readers play in contributing to or positively influencing these systems.

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Why is it important?

Writers are biased, and every literary text is problematic in some way, as writers include some perspectives, disregard others, and sometimes even perpetuate stereotypes. However, teachers are often trained to teach texts without interrogating texts' ongoing impacts on society. Every day, students face many different stereotypes because of narratives that reinforce harmful identities for them or for others. If they are to build stronger relationships and positive identities, and if they are to understand the cultural impact of their own representations of themselves and others, they need opportunities to interrogate the social meanings of texts. However, the social meanings of texts change within a variety of contexts over time. Proleptic-ethnodrama pedagogy helps students situate texts within a variety of dramatic contexts and interrogate the social meanings that emerge. It helps students explore a variety of perspectives on the nature of the conflicts presented in texts and the significance of those conflicts for a range of people from different backgrounds. In the process, they learn how to inquire into the sources for author's beliefs and biases as well as the sources for their own biased interpretations of texts. They learn about social systems that keep harmful relationships and identities in place. They learn how to be more sophisticated writers who can anticipate the work their own texts will do in the world for a variety of people. Proleptic-ethnodrama situates students as researchers of the language choices of writers. By learning how to research the language choices of writers, they engage a process of becoming informed citizens who know how to interrogate and cross-examine the perspectives of writers. They know how to continue to problematize the language choices of all speakers and writers in regard to their impact on many different people.

Perspectives