Directed toward those who serve as workshop speakers, leaders, sponsors, or organizers, this article presents seven rules for workshop planning under the headings Defensive Maneuvers against Host Inadequacies, Other Host Errors, and Self-Defensive Maneuvers for Hosts. Twelve additional suggestions cover workshop small group effectiveness and…

Examines how, in the film "Lady of the Lake," an experiment with the conflation of the look of the camera with that of the protagonist through extended first-person camera techniques dismantles conventional voyeuristic visual pleasure, affects the representation/fetishization of women in the film, and figures into the debate on the…

Using popular theatre techniques of naming, analyzing, and acting on problems and working creatively with conflict, a group of women created opportunities for high-risk story telling and deep listening. The role of the audience was transformed from spectator to responsible and responsive participant. (Contains 27 references.) (SK)

Argues for the systematic use of patterns of arrangement to order and revise texts for a particular subject matter, purpose, and audience. Illustrates how writers mobilize textual patterns to some tangible effect and, as a consequence, how writing teachers and student-writers can overcome the pragmatic limitations ready-built into arrangement and…

Describes the author's experience working on a reader's theatre version of a radio play based on the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Reflects on how the grade 8 students created meaning for themselves and for their audience. Notes limitations of the script and format and her work within those limitations became the structure the group needed, a container…

Explains that the exercise "Pictures at an Exhibition" is designed to remind student actors of their responsibilities to the script and audience while simultaneously giving them a chance to employ the basic tools of the acting craft. Presents the activity in two rounds: (1) what do you see? and (2) painting by the numbers. (PA)

Discusses the production of an autobiographical play about the Holocaust, "Who Will Carry the Word?" by Charlotte Delbo. Notes that the play is in three acts, needs a large female cast, and was mounted by the Teen Repertory Company of the Oddfellows Playhouse of Middletown, Connecticut. Describes rehearsal techniques and audience…

Nine focus groups of University of Florida faculty, staff, and students (n=79) provided comments on the university's Web site. Resulting suggestions for effective sites involved design/aesthetics (menu bar, structure, graphics), content (balance, timeliness), and interactivity (search engine, feedback mechanism). (SK)

Illustrates key features of visual rhetoric as they operate in two professional academic hypertexts and student work designed for the World Wide Web. Considers how by looking at features like audience stance, transparency, and hybridity, writing teachers can teach visual rhetoric as a transformative process of design. (SG)

Looks at the storytelling of a retired professional soccer player. Analyses this oral narrative event, looking at the structure or formal organization of the text (the morphology) as well as the performance techniques of the telling. Suggests ways narrative is shaped by folkloristic structures that thereby attract the listener and encourage the…

Presents a condensed method for involving students in the kind of theatrical problem-solving that transforms a script to a play. Describes how to incorporate a "human slide show" into the class. Notes that students must read plays not just to understand events, but to make artistic choices about how to stage the action so that an…

Notes that in rehearsals and performances, a jumble of silences are encountered. Discusses silence in the following situations: as frustration; as imposition; as invisibility; as power; as pleasure; as safety; as humility; as necessity; and as potential. Contends that when dramaturgs enter into conversation and break silence, they must carefully…

Outlines a dramaturg's process when working on three different plays. Contends that the myriad variations on the question "what will happen next?" serve as the basic architecture on which the dynamic relationship between the story/storytellers and the audience is built. Observes that the continual planning and answering of questions is…

Considers how inviting students to play Walker Gibson's "talk-back game" is an excellent way to bring the complications of appropriate tone to life. Describes three steps to incorporate Gibson's concept into the classroom. Notes that Gibson's concept considers the potential resistance of the reader. (SG)

Explores the Harry Potter phenomenon with college students in a university course. Compares the first book with the first movie. Presents an in-depth discussion of the movie and how it relates to the book. (SG)