Reflection 1

I thought that this Voice and Diction unit went very well with my Advanced Theatre class. I will admit that this was a surprise. I was very nervous about how they might react to the nature of the activities. There was a little silliness during presentations, but the student leaders handled themselves and got the class back on track very quickly.

All students read their chapter of the book and I was glad that I made the stipulation that all chapters had to be covered. There was some aversion to certain chapters.

This unit would not work as well in a Theatre I class and I did not try it in those classes. We do cover Voice and Diction in Theatre I, but in a much different way.

There isn’t much about this unit that I would change except that I allowed students to volunteer to present. I think this might have been a little confusing for students who might later try to put together one cohesive warmup that incorporated all parts of the Carey method. Next time, I will have all chapter 1 exercises present first, then chapter 2, and so on.

Another change that I might make when teaching this unit in the future would be to schedule a meeting with each student immediately after they decide which exercise they would like to teach, especially if they are choosing an exercise we did not go over in class. I allowed students to come chat with me if they didn’t understand or needed clarification. Sometimes students didn’t realize that they needed clarification until they were presenting and I had to correct their form or instructions to the class.

As a whole, this was a great unit and the students were very receptive to it. I’m not sure I will cover the entire unit, as written, in the future but will definitely use the exercises and information from the chapters in future classes and with my after school performance group.

-December 2021