ENG 202 Option 3: The Embodied Track

Instead of producing traditional written essays, each student on the Embodied Track will perform in a series of in-class staged readings. These performances will happen during our Monday full-class sessions — check the ENG 202 course schedule for Embodied Track performance dates — and will rehearse for an extra hour every week, on Mondays from 5:10pm-6pm at UC 140 (the same classroom where our full-class sessions meet), as well as multiple hours beyond that in student-led rehearsals.

Dramatic texts constitute a massive part of literary history, but disembodied readings of those texts — pulling them away from the active performance milieux that their composers and earliest readers had in mind, and confining them to silent, solitary reading — do more harm than good to our understanding of those texts. The idea here is to re-embody historical dramatic texts in two ways: first, by playing through them ourselves, allowing us to better understand them as a player would, second, by playing through them in front of classmates, allowing them to better understand them as spectators would (something that filmed versions can not achieve).

Only a maximum of fourteen ENG 202 students can be on the Embodied Track at any one time. If more than fourteen students want in, then some students will have to switch Tracks halfway through term so everyone gets a chance. (If more than twenty-eight students in a tutorial want to join the Embodied Track, we may have to determine assignments by lottery.) I will be in touch with registered students, about a month before our first class meeting, to recruit the first Embodied Track group.

IMPORTANT: By signing up for the Embodied Track, you’re committing to show up, in person (not remotely!), both to our weekly full-cast rehearsals outside class and to the full-class meetings in which performances will occur (I will post the day and time and to the class meetings in which you will be performing). If you don’t feel like you can commit to show up in person, or if you cannot attend our weekly full-cast rehearsals for scheduling reasons, don’t sign up for this Track!

You should never miss a full-cast rehearsal, but on the off-chance that you do, you will be required to organize, host, and convene an extra 90-minute-long supplementary rehearsal with at least three of your fellow performers, video-record the rehearsal, and submit it to me before the corresponding performance. If you cannot do that, whatever the reason, you’ll lose credit.

You should never miss a performance (!), but on the off-chance that you do, whatever the reason may be, I will switch you automatically to the Philological Track. This will invalidate any Embodied Track work you’ve done during that half-term; you’ll have to turn in an essay instead, following the Philological Track guidelines and deadlines. Be sure you are aware of every performance date ahead of time—the final one, of Beowulf, may occur on a Thursday (“makeup Monday”); everyone on the Embodied Track for the second half of term must be able to attend on that day.

In addition to our weekly scheduled full-cast rehearsals, students are expected to convene regularly on their own, multiple times per week, in small groups — to practice lines and review or add to staging. IMPORTANT: The bulk of the work you will be doing for the Embodied Track will happen in your individual preparation and in the small-group rehearsals you and your classmates schedule independently. I expect each Embodied Track participant to put in a great deal of independent work — considerably more than the amount of work equivalent to what a diligent student would otherwise be spending on an essay — in order to achieve the tasks I specify below, along with any other tasks or responsibilities I assign during the rehearsal process. Those who do truly put in the additional work required for this Track tend to have higher average grades than the other Tracks as a result, though, and the work tends to be much more fun.

Course Requirements/Grading Weight

Staged Reading of Shakespeare, 10%

Usually performed in Week 3 — see course schedule for exact date — with three hour-long full-cast rehearsal/postmortem meetings: one in Week 1, one in Week 2, one in Week 3. Each student is required to memorize 20-25 lines of their part, exactly as written in the script, and to deliver those lines on the day of performance; the rest of the lines can be read directly from the script during performance. (Be aware: there is an especially quick turnaround from assignment of roles to performance for the Shakespeare play!) I will send each student a grade breakdown, with thoughtful comments, within a week or two after their performance (following the grading template that you can find, and should consult, in our course Google Drive file); those comments may include specific goals I ask the student to work on for the next performance.

Staged Reading of Medieval Biblical Plays, 12.5%

Usually performed in Week 7 — see course schedule for exact date — with three hour-long full-cast rehearsal/postmortem meetings during Weeks 4-6. Each student is required to memorize 20-25 lines of their part, and to deliver those lines on the day of performance; the rest of the lines can be read, using the provided translation, directly from the script during performance. I will not share written comments after this performance; instead, I’ll offer some informal feedback at our rehearsal sessions (for further feedback, please see me in Office Hours).

Staged Readings from The Pride of Life/Digby 86, 12.5%

Usually performed in Week 9 — see course schedule for exact date — with three hour-long full-cast rehearsal/postmortem meetings during Weeks 7-9. Each student is required to memorize 20-25 lines of their part, then 8 further lines in the original early Middle English (with the rest in the provided translation), and to deliver those lines on the day of performance; the rest of the lines can be read, using the provided translation, directly from the script during performance. I will send each student a grade breakdown, with thoughtful comments, within a week or two after their performance (following the grading template that you can find, and should consult, in our course Google Drive file); those comments may include specific goals I ask the student to work on for the next performance.

Staged Reading of Beowulf, 10%

Usually performed across Weeks 11 and 12 — see course schedule for exact dates — with two hour-long full-cast rehearsal/postmortem meetings during Weeks 10-11. The first part of this performance will require each student to read 50-80 lines aloud, directly from a modern English translation of Beowulf, to our full class—at the second-to-last meeting. The second part of the performance will require each student to memorize 3-6 lines of the original Old English, and to deliver those lines as part of our poetry discussion during our final full-class meeting (that meeting may have to occur during the “Makeup Monday” session sometimes scheduled by the university on a Thursday following the last day of class—students participating in the Embodied Track for the second half of term must be able to attend that class in person). I will not share written comments after this performance; instead, I’ll offer some informal feedback at our rehearsal sessions (for further feedback, please see me in Office Hours).

Final Test, 15%

A very short and simple test, delivered during Finals Week, that will assess your retention of the basic terms and dates that we have been using all semester. Click here to learn more.

Engagement and Participation in tutorial sessions, 15%

All ENG 202 students (yes, even Embodied Track students) are required to participate in TA-led tutorials. You’re encouraged to speak up in our full-class meetings, too (and doing so can improve your grade here)! If, by the end of term, your tutorial classmates have a pretty good idea of how you approach class material, you’ll do well. Click here to read my full policy on Engagement and Participation.

Real-Time Comprehension Questions, asked at the end of each class session, 15%

Two quick short-answer questions, asked and answered in the final 2-3 minutes of each class meeting. Click here to read full instructions for Real-Time Comprehension Questions.

Actual Attendance at the minimum number of class sessions (including full-class sessions and TA-led tutorials), 10%

This grade, shared by all Tracks, covers attendance at full-class sessions and TA-led tutorials only; attendance at full-cast rehearsal/postmortem meetings is covered below. You earn ten points of your course grade just for showing up. You lose those points if you miss too many classes, regardless of the reason. See the main course page under “Class Meetings” to learn the exact numbers this term for how many class sessions you can miss without losing points..

Preparing for Staged Reading Assignments: Instructions and Evaluation

Your Staged Reading Assignments are each graded on a 10-points or 12.5-point system. Here’s how those points break down:

1. Showing up (1.5 points)
Each week, in addition to the full-class meetings and TA-led tutorials required of all ENG 202 students, Embodied Track students are required to attend an extra session. That extra session, which will be scheduled two months before class begins, will occur at the same time and place every week. We will use the sessions leading up to each performance in order to conduct full-cast rehearsals for that performance; the session immediately following each performance will be a required postmortem session in which we discuss that day’s reading, recite memorized passages, and prep lightly for the next reading. If you show up to all scheduled full-cast rehearsals, performance, and postmortem sessions, you will receive full credit (1.5 out of 1.5) for this portion of your assignment grade. Be sure you are aware of every performance date ahead of time—the final one, of Beowulf, may occur on a Thursday (“makeup Monday”); everyone on the Embodied Track for the second half of term must be able to attend on that day.

IMPORTANT: Over and above the required full-cast rehearsal/postmortem sessions, I expect every Embodied Track student to convene very frequently with their fellow performers, in small groups, on their own time, to practice lines and review or add to staging — I won’t be checking attendance at these, of course, but frequent practice is necessary in order to present an effective in-class performance. Remember that, on the Embodied Track, you should expect each pair of performances to involve more than the total work you’d do for one traditional essay — if you’re not doing that much, you’ll likely produce work that is graded lower. Work hard, proactively, and independently.

2. Memorization and delivery (4 points)
During the in-class staged readings, each student will recite most of their part from a copy of the playscript, but each student is required to memorize, and be able to deliver, a certain number lines (see above) from memory, without errors or stumbling. Plays in early English also have varied requirements for how many of those lines must be memorized and delivered in early English, according to the pronunciation practices we learn during our rehearsal/postmortem sessions (see above). At the postmortem session following each in-class performance, all students will be required to recite their required lines from memory, in front of the whole cast. If you deliver all your lines in a plain, rote style, without any apparent trip-ups or forgetting, you will earn 3 out of 4 points here.  If your delivery uses vocal pacing and variation to demonstrate a truly deep understanding of the lines spoken, you can earn 3.5 or even 3.75 points (no perfect scores). From there, every error in memorization/delivery will deduct either 0.25 or 0.5 points from your starting score.

3. Performance, embodiment, comprehension (4.5 points)
I'll expect all Embodied Track students to do what they need to do, both by studying on their own and by organizing student-led rehearsals, to get to know their lines well — I'll never grade you on your innate acting ability, but I will be looking for improvement and effectiveness in whether you read your lines in ways that allow other students to understand what you're saying—and that means you will need to, as thoroughly as possible, understand what you're saying. Make use of the dictionary resources we introduce in class! A solid performance that gets the job done, and gets it done well, will earn 3 points here. An insanely stellar performance might earn as high as a 4.25 — but that high score is quite rare. Most performers will score somewhere between those two numbers, unless problems arise (for instance, if cues are too frequently missed,    or if required props or actions are missing); scores are always in increments of 0.25. This is a somewhat subjective grade, but I may take into account the student’s visible preparation on performance day (are all lines delivered with clear comprehension? are all props provided and in the right place?), the energy, playfulness, creativity, teamwork, and determination that the student brings to their role, the audience’s reaction, and in general the effectiveness of the performance.

4a. Application of Prior Feedback — Medieval Biblical Plays only (2.5 points)
Soon after the Twelfth Night showing I’ll provide each student with written feedback on their performance. For the medieval biblical plays only, I’ll add an extra score to measure how effectively students applied that feedback specifically.

4b. Early Middle English — Pride of Life/Digby 86 Plays only (2.5 points)

For the Pride of Life/Digby 86 plays I require all Embodied Track students to memorize and recite early Middle English, according to pronunciation training I’ll offer during full-group rehearsal sessions. I’ll add an extra score here to measure how effectively students recited their Middle English, based on pronunciation, accuracy of memorization, and how clearly the meaning of these lines comes through.

(There is also an Old English memorization requirement for Beowulf, but it’s much shorter and tougher, so I do not grade Beowulf for pronunciation, instead only evaluating it as part of the usual “Memorization and Delivery” score).

Staging Practices: Making In-Class Performances Work

Early drama, at least as I understand it, was about rough-and-ready making-it-work—none of the preciousness or perfectionism that currently define most present-day theatre. Nobody will be looking for perfection—our goal is just to do something genuinely enjoyable and fun and alive here, because dramatic literature is un-understandable without that.

I will assign roles to students at the first full-cast rehearsal session for each play—there will be no opportunity to know (or prepare) any role before that. Anyone on the Embodied Track should let me know as soon as possible whether they want a big or small role (or whether they don’t care either way) and whether there is any kind of character they are truly uncomfortable taking on (you don't have to tell me why; just say “I don't ever want to play a talking fox” or whatever). Casting will generally be gender-blind (except where an actor is uncomfortable playing a particular gender); as for role size, the pro actors will each take one large role—from there, I’ll try to align everyone with the role size they prefer (but no guarantees there). All bodies and abilities are welcome—we will work with whatever you’ve got.

Blocking will be freeform and simple; there will be no amplification, no microphones, but I’ll do what I can to offer students on-the-spot training in getting their voices heard (sound will carry well, though, since we are performing in the classroom where lectures occur). There may be energetic movement involved in some parts of the plays. Embodied Trackers should attend rehearsals ready to move around a bit (in a way that is, again, custom-fit to whatever body, ability, and comfort level each student has)—all should wear comfortable, movable clothes to rehearsal. Oh, and in keeping with early performance practices, everyone will be required to sing, just a little—you don’t have to sing well, and you can always sing in a large group (unless you want a solo!), but when the rest of your cast lifts their voices in silly songs, you’ve got to add yours to the volume. If you can confidently play any instruments that you are able and willing to bring in, let me know—we’ll work them in! If you can do any tricks (juggling, cartwheels, whatever), and you are willing to attempt them in front of the class, let me know about those too.

But you do not have to be a seasoned, skilled, confident, or at all talented performer to be on the Embodied Track and earn full credit — you just have to bring whatever you’ve got and whoever you are! For some students, the Embodied Track has proven a great confidence-builder (and there is a wide variety of sizes of roles available, from leads to bit parts).

At the first full-cast rehearsal meeting, I will provide every student in the Embodied Track with a printout of each play’s script — free of charge. There are no extra books required for purchase, but Embodied Track students do have to identify and provide any props called for in their lines, explicitly or implicitly — you don’t need to use a realistic prop (a pencil will do for a sword, a notebook for a shield) but be sure to have something in hand when the time comes during performance. It’s your responsibility to know ahead of time what those times are, and what is needed. (No physical item should be mimed in these performances).