The Quest

This week I experienced a huge lightbulb moment. A flash of synchronicity led me to James M. Lang’s fantastic new book, Write Like You Teach. This dude sees me.

Image by Alex_Bon from Pixabay

I just finished reading Chapter 2 on Writing Design. (I’m a slow reader. Don’t judge.) The chapter was an epiphany. It provided several possible writing design structures that did not mirror a typical academic tome. I have options for organizing my OER textbook that may not put students to sleep! Yippee!

One structure I’m considering is the Quest.

Sounds adventurous, doesn’t it? Much more interesting than Abstract, Intro, Literary Review, Methodology, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, zzzzzzz. We can still include all the rigorous study and exploration, but we can do it using a tactic that theater makers have been practicing forever—storytelling.

“Quests typically include dead ends, wrong turns, and obstacles,” Lang wrote.

Just like a great story! I thought.

“Discoveries do not come without cost and effort.”

Yes! If students struggle just a bit, the learning is deeper. Hard-fought discoveries are sweet and satisfying.

My obstacle for the last month has been trying to clearly incorporate the outcomes for the course without turning it into just one more dull textbook that students won’t read.

In a Quest, we don’t know what is going to happen next. It’s a mystery to be solved, a journey of discovery.

A Quest would also be true to the process of learning. Lang wrote that writers of quests play the role of a tour guide, staying just a few steps ahead of the reader. They might point out a “stumbling block” on the road or help someone find their way out of a tangled forest of competing ideas. Even if they have secretly already drawn the map and purchased a timeshare at the destination, they still work through the clues with the reader as if for the first time.

This lines up with what I learned in the Active Learning Institute last year (thank you, Kerri Mitchell and Eric Salahub). The idea behind Active Learning is the person who does the work, does the learning. Eric and Kerri repeated that statement, attributed to Terry Doyle’s book, Learner-Centered Teaching, in every session at ALI. It’s great if a student struggles a bit along the way, because that contributes to deeper and longer lasting knowledge.

The one who does the work, does the learning. 

~ Terry Doyle, from Learner Centered Teaching

Lang goes a step further in the conclusion of chapter two of Write Like you Teach. “And if the author has done their work well, readers are then inspired to set off on their own quests to discover new ideas for themselves.”

That would fulfill my wildest dreams—students pick up where we leave off and continue pursuing their own interests in theater, starting their own adventures and creating unique experiences. Theater as a subject is immense. There is no way we will cover everything in one book or one class. The best outcome would be to inspire lifelong learning and appreciation of the art form.

As I’ve been tossing around ideas for the outline of the book, I’ve also started incorporating student questions as section headers. I’ve kept a list of interesting questions and statements students have made over the years in Theatre Appreciation class, so I have a deep well to dip into for these headers. The questions could guide our discussions in the book and maybe even drive the narrative.

Yes, we will cover the outcomes for the course, but we can take a far more interesting path to get there. Learning is not dull. Theater is active and vibrant. I don’t need to parrot typical scholarly verbiage to inspire deep, rigorous thought. Let’s get down to real conversations and real research and discovery and not waste anyone’s time.

The quest begins!