There Is Enough Time: Accounting for Each Student's Learning Trajectory and Identity Needs With Proleptic-Ethnodrama

• Published in: Journal of adolescent & adult literacy Vol. 58; no. 5; pp. 397 - 406
• Main Authors: Hobson, Sarah R, Vu, Julie F
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley-Blackwell 01.02.2015
• Subjects: Context Effect; Cultural Influences; Drama; Ethnography; Identification (Psychology); Social Influences; Teaching Methods; Time
• ISSN: 1081-3004
• DOI: 10.1002/jaal.367

This paper draws upon an explanation of the proleptic, an understanding of time as being socially constructed within specific contexts, to interpret a series of dramatic sequences enacted in ethnodramatic pedagogy. The authors present two major arguments: (1) teachers can help students analyze the processes that influence and shape their identities by adopting a proleptic framework; (2) ethnodrama, a dramatic and dialogic approach to interpreting texts, creates an opportunity for students to evaluate the social forces that shape identity construction as they situate and reflect on texts within multiple contexts. The authors delineate the ways in which teachers can use ethnodrama to help students revise their understandings of the personal and cultural implications of texts by situating these understandings in different configurations of place, space, and time.