Lake Forest College First-Year Studies Program, FIYS 194

Instructor: D. Ohlandt

Playwrights & Performers: Considering Voice
Fall 2008-09

In this class, we’ll consider and practice the skills we need to develop our own voices as members of an intellectual community– skills like confidence in public speaking, choosing language appropriate for different audiences and disciplines, structuring an analytic argument, physical and vocal range, using different kinds of evidence (textual, historical, and experiential) to support and illustrate claims, developing concentration and using imagination, and drafting and revising.

As we consider our own voices in writing and speaking, we’ll also explore how the written voice of a playwright becomes the physical voice of a performer. Throughout theater history, actors and directors have developed performance techniques in response to the styles of new plays, and playwrights have developed new literary styles for the techniques of specific performers. We’ll spend part of each unit in a “literature seminar” and the other part in a “studio session,” working to complete a written assignment and a performance assignment. For each unit, we’ll focus on a playwright and a performer who worked together and influenced each other’s professional style and artistic voice.

Course objectives:

  1. overall, to bridge the transition between the academic skills of high school and the academic skills of college.
  2. to identify and practice skills of critical academic writing (incl. thesis statements, argument structure, correct citation, and appropriate evidence)
  3. to identify and practice skills of critical academic thinking (incl. considering social and historical context, unfamiliar vocabulary, evaluating arguments and evidence, analysis)
  4. to practice identifying different audiences and using appropriate voices for different audiences
  5. to practice different types of thesis-based academic writing - to practice different types of performance techniques
  6. to learn how to use our peers as a resource in refining our writing, thinking, and speaking, and how to be a resource for them
  7. to identify and connect to academic and co-curricular resources of Lake Forest College