Experience to Evaluate

I, just like Paige, also found myself evaluating our teacher as she was acting like she was making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She kept saying that this activity would have been better if she would have brought in the actual materials but for us to just imagine that the materials were there. All I could think about was that I wanted to tell her to really see the objects and believe they were there. I could tell that she really did not see the bag of bread and the jars of peanut butter and jelly in front of her. I would have never thought about saying that until taking this class. I never really thought I would apply this class to my education classes, but I guess I was wrong!

Interesting...

I just had to share this...
In my education block this past Thursday, my professor decided to stop teaching and have us do an activity because when discussing she realized that many of us have not done it before. The activity consisted of everyone writing down the specific steps to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. After she gave us about 5 minutes or so, she had some people in class share. Instead of simply listening, she demonstrated the steps being read to her by the student(s). Well...here is the part that relates to this class...she did not have the materials with her to actually make the sandwich so she decided to demonstrate with imaginary materials. Rhea sits next to me and as soon as our professor started using imaginary objects we simultaneously turned to each other and were like "oh my gosh...acting for non-majors. ha". I am sure that we would not even thought about it if it were not for this class. However, since we are "experienced" when it comes to dealing with imaginary objects, we found this interesting, funny, and I don't know about Rhea, but I found myself evaluating her skills. ha.

Tables and other objects

I have a hard time interacting with imaginary objects. i know we have done many activities involving imaginary objects, and some of them have been fairly successful, but they take a lot more concentration than anything else. I also feel like they either go really well or they are completely unbelieveable. There doesn't seem to be much in between, so it is hard when you get up knowing that it is either going to really suck or possible be really awesome. I don't feel like we had the same issues with the tube though. Even though we were forming imaginary objects out of it, because we had something real in our hands everything that we made out of it seemed to be real too.

tables tables tables

I think that the activity today was very challenging because it took almost all of what we have done already and put them together. Talking, eating and keeping objects in the same places all at the same time was hard. Its especially hard because in real life its easier to time when there is food in your mouth when you can talk. I noticed that people were talking right after taking a giant bite of food, I found this funny because in real life people might try not to look like a fool by talking with a full mouth. Its just really hard to keep track of everything, that's why I had trouble with it. Also, I have never really thought of the appropriate height of tables until today.

Class

I think that class is definitely a lot more fun now that we are getting more and more comfortable acting like idiots around each other. The getting stuck activity proved to be rather weird. I felt really awkward the whole time I was doing it. I'm not sure why but I didn't really like that particular activity, maybe it was because I had never been caught in a giant spider web before. However I believe that activity made us think but I could definitely see how people were finishing early because it was such and awkward thing to do.

I think it's great that everyone is starting to have more fun in class. The new exercises that we are doing let us use our imaginations a whole lot more. Especially the cardboard tube one. I think people think too hard when they are trying to come up with an idea for it. I just go with the first thing that comes to mind. And I guess that's the whole point of this and the other exercises we do.

getting stuck

I thoguht the activity we did last class was hilarious!!! i loved it! i thought it was really hard to make it not to showy! I think its a really good activity!

class

class is becoming alot more fun!!! i think it is bc cause everyone realizes that its ok to be a dork haha, and the acting we do in class now is also getting better because of that. so i think by the end of class we should all be pretty good and acting.

FUN!!!

I agree with everyone that class has been a lot of fun lately. I believe this is because everyone is starting to get more comfortable now and is starting to really enjoy the class. I also agree that it fun to pick out of the gourd because you never know what your going to get. You don't get time to think about it either you just go with it. I know for me personally its these exercises that have made me become more comfortable rather it be group or only. Even though I feel more comfortable i would still rather do activities in groups.

I second or third or whatever, the notion of class being exciting and full of drama (good kind). It was interesting getting tangled in an imaginary web monkey’s bars; I had fun trying to figure it out. I thought about when I used to live in New York, spending a great deal of my time at the park right across the street from the projects. I did get stuck once on the monkey bars when I nine, my brother had to get me down as I hanged upside down for about fifteen minutes. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for us next in class, peace.

I agree with Renee, I thought class was a blast on Tuesday. Actually I think it has been a blast for the past couple classes. At first I didn't want to do things in front of the class on my own, I always wanted to be in a group but I actually don't mind being alone in front of everyone anymore. Plus I like watching single people rather than mutiple people every now and then. I also agree that it's fun to pick ideas out of our gourd lol. You never know what you're going to pull out but it's exciting because you never know when you're going to have to be the crocodile hunter or a bull fighter!

Yes, class continues to be fun, kind of like goal-oriented 'whose line'. Speaking of which, this is a little off-topic, but I have always thought that I could pick out theater majors/enthusiasts in convo because of their overblown hand gestures and dynamic conversations. I thought they were letting overacting spill into their daily lives. Lately, I feel challenged in this attribution by the somewhat minimalist nature of this class. I wonder if anyone else feels this way?

WOW

So class was very interesting and fun on tue. I thought I had so many ideas for the cardboard tube but then someone would that them or I decided it would not work. So I did no think that it would be so hard to think of something but it really was. Also I found it very entertaining watching people get entangled in things. Everyone imagines getting entangled in something different and I liked seeing how people imagined themselvs doing something.

I also really like the whole idea of us writing down things and picking them out of bowl. I am always scared of what I am going to get and how hard it is going to be, but I always have fun and I enjoy watching everyone.

Video Taping/Story

Someone mentioned video taping the class in their entry. I think this is a fabulous idea. As an education major and a musician, I know that you can learn a lot from seeing yourself on tape. Watching a tape of yourself helps you realize what you actually look like when you are doing something. You can also realize what aspects of your acting might need more or less. And it would definitely be interesting to tape a few different classes during the semester to see progress.

I am glad that we are now putting some of our activities in the context of a story. This is really helping us to expand our acting skills because it raises the bar a bit higher. Now you actually have to think about several different aspects besides the present. You also have to think about what happened and what will happen.

Imagination

So the little cardboard tube certainly made things even more interesting in the class. I thought it was cool to come up with different ideas of what the tube could be just based on what it looked like. It sort of reminds me of when you are a kid and you look in the sky at the clouds. Only now, you get to actually show the object rather than trying to convince others what it is.

I also thought the little mini story thing was fun because we were able to give the object a little bit of background rather than just showing off the item. I think it would have been more interesting if we had to do the same item with someone else while we both were up there though.

Cardboard Tubes, Entanglement, and Stories About Random Objects

Class Tuesday was very interesting. I like how each activity builds on the previous activity. I feel like everyone in the class is progressing so much. I remember at the beginning of the semester when we had to pick a small object and use it. Now we are adding story lines to our objects. The whole class is also thinking on their feet better. The speed of the class has increased. We are now able to accomplish an activity with little explanation. I wish we could have video taped our first few classes and compared them with our most recent classes. I think everyone would be pleasantly surprised at how well we are doing.

FUN!

I agree that class is becoming more fun as people get more comfortable. I also think that yesterday's class went especially well because the pace was so quick. Activities like the tube and assign-a story-to-your-random-object were fun because they got the point across very quickly. And they were interesting. Because people were more relaxed they were more willing to try new/strange things that were more interesting to watch and more fun to actually do.

Tube Activity

I really enjoyed the tube activity we did in class today! At first, I could only think of sports related things that someone could do with the tube. As we continued to go around in the circle, I thought of more and more things we could do with the tube. I wonder how long we could have kept going with the activity. It goes to show that even though it is just a cardboard tube it can have many uses. I always enjoy seeing what people come up with as ideas. I feel like there are so many creative people in our class!

Thinking Outside of the Box

One really needs to think outside of the box during this class. All of the activities that we did today had us using our imaginations and thinking of the unusual. This class is great because it allows us college students to be able to revisit that creativity and imagination that we so often used and enjoyed when we were children. It definitely makes it more interesting to watch too that is for sure. I am having so much fun in this class and actually still learning things...who knew. ha
I also agree with Claire. It does seem that we are all able to act like idiots and we are actually becoming a lot more comfortable doing it. I realized this when we had to pick from the little pumpkin container. People who would never have gone until they absolutely had to were going more towards the beginning. Impressive.

"70 minutes, how long is that?"

I find class more and more entertaining every day. I find it really funny, there aren't many classes that entertain me like this one, so good job everyone. I was telling my friend about the paper tube thing that we did and she asked why I didn't choose a unicorn... so I'd like to change my answer to that because everybody enjoys unicorns. I also noticed that our class is getting a lot more comfortable with each other, which is kinda nice