Course Description:

The impulse to tell stories is universal across cultures.  We are indeed a story-telling species.  We narrate our way through our own lives, and we move within a world of stories that tell us who we are and how we should live.  Narrative is fundamental to the ongoing processes of communication and culture.  As individuals and communities, our very humanity is bound up in our ability and desire to recount or invent stories as a way of making meaning and community. 

Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is that to go on living I have to tell stories, that stories are the one sure way I know to touch the heart and change the world.
Dorothy Allison

But narrative’s function is not simply to express one’s individual perception, but the telling of the stories of others – that is, to make another’s story our own – is also a means to experience and study perceptions of the world that exceed or even challenge our own.  Performing the narratives of others provides us with the opportunity to develop our capacities for imagination and empathy as we discover worldviews, experiences and knowledge that goes beyond our own scope of experience.

The story comes, after the accident, to claim the body. Craig Gingrich-Philbrook

Finally, to study narrative through performance provides a unique opportunity to study both dominant and subordinated cultures through the stories people tell about them and through them.  Our work together in this class will enable us to appreciate and critically examine the ways in which the practice of telling stories works to regulate and/or contest values in contemporary society.

We are virtually from the start expressions of the culture that nurtures us. And culture itself is a dialectic, replete with alternative narratives about what self is or might be. The stories we tell to create ourselves reflect that dialectic.
Jerome Bruner

Our Goals in the Course:

• To explore the ways performance constitutes a way of thinking, feeling, and being in the world.
• To understand how narratives function as a way of making sense of the world and our experiences.
• To understand through performance how language and texts constitute rhetorical acts -- acts with intention, structure and purpose.
• To develop a critical methodology for understanding how narrative fiction and nonfiction frame our understandings of the world and enable and constrain our prospects within that world.
• To develop a creative methodology for appreciating and expressing the wide range of human characters and experiences available in stories.
• To experience and appreciate the deep responsibility involved in creating an embodied performance, that is:
  • to discover the challenges and joys of experiencing the world from another's point of view, and
  • to take on the task of embodying and expressing those experiences to an audience.

    Two or three things I know for sure and one of them is that telling the story all the way through is an act of love.
    Dorothy Allison

Our Obligations to the Class:

• Be prepared and on time for each class session.
• Be present (both physically and mentally) so that you may learn from others and offer colleagues your insights.
• Commit yourself to producing well-written, thoughtful, and coherent written and performance work.
• Be willing to experiment and challenge yourself with performance methodology (on your feet, embodied practice), and to support your colleagues doing the same.
• Be open to listening, respecting, and understanding perspectives that differ from your own.

Required Texts:

• Dorothy Allison, Two or Three Things I Know for Sure. Plume, 1995. ISBN 0-452-27340-4
• Divakaruni, Justice, and Quay (ed.), California Uncovered: Stories for the 21st Century. CA Council for the Humanities, 2005. ISBN 1-890771-97-X
• C. Logan, COMS 303 Reader. *Available only at Northridge Stationery and Copy Center, 9130 B Reseda Blvd, 775-0255)
  

Course Assignments:

This is a performance-centered class.  By this I mean the critical and creative act of performance is our central methodology of research, study, and presentation.  This is not an acting class.  While one of our goals is to learn and develop performance skills, our central task is the exploration of ideas, culture, self, and humanity through the aesthetic practice of performance.  Performance requires a willingness to develop and express our intimate feelings and values; to take creative, intellectual, and emotional risks; and to WORK VERY HARD.

This course is centered around four performance projects:

• An introductory, ungraded performance of a narrative from your own life.
• Two solo performances excerpted from the course materials of fiction and nonfiction.
• A final group performance, adapted and staged by the group.

Each performance will require substantial outside rehearsal preparation, and will be accompanied by a short writing project.


Assignment Breakdown: *see the Assignment Guidelines page for details

Grading System:

Individual assignments are graded on a standard 10% scale.   Only number grades for assignments are recorded.  These add up to a percentage.   Your final course grade will be plus/minus, determined by course point totals as follows:

My Grading Rubric: see the document What Grades Mean

Course Policies and Procedures

Email is always the best way to reach me.  I get lots of email, so please put COMS 303 in the Subject Heading of any email you send to me, so that I can be sure to respond to you quickly.  I will always try to get back to you within 24-hours.  I will communicate with the class via your CSUN email account, so be sure to activate it and check it regularly, or set it up to forward to another email  account.

Class Citizenship
Success in any class depends upon preparedness and attendance – after two absences, each further absence will result in a reduction of your final grade by one-half grade (e.g. B+ to B, etc.).  Documented emergencies must be communicated to me by phone or email before the beginning of class.  

Make sure that you are on time to class  -- tardiness is disruptive to everyone.  Tardiness beyond the first seven minutes is considered an absence.  Likewise, leaving class early will affect your grade.  On performance dates, do not enter the room if you are late.  Wait quietly outside, until you hear applause to indicate that the performance is over.

Class Community
A supportive and successful performance class is dependent on the following elements: respect, preparation, regular attendance, promptness, in-class participation, and on-line participation.  Your class participation grade is based on your success in all of these elements.  Respect includes thoughtful critique of your classmates’ work.  But it also consists of all the other elements – preparation includes not only preparing your own performance work, but careful readings of course materials (all readings are due the day they are listed in the syllabus), especially of your peers’ performance selections.  Quizzes and free writes will be given at the outset of class during the semester; these will figure into your participation grade.

Cell Phones must be turned off (not just silenced) during class.   Texting? Don’t even think about it.    

Due Dates are firm
Papers and performances are due as assigned. The course-schedule is subject to change – however I will only make changes to give you MORE time to do work.  Performance dates themselves, once selected, are set in stone.  You will sign up for your performance date, so make sure you choose a date for which you can be prepared.  There are no makeups of missed performances.  Papers and other graded work will be reduced one full grade point for each day - not class day, any day - late.  Exceptions will be granted in only the most unanticipated or extreme situations (e.g., medical emergency).  I will ask for documentation - please don’t take it personally.

Writing: Mechanical & Stylistic Competence:  Students are responsible for proper spelling, grammar, usage and syntax in all written assignments. If you need help in these areas, I urge you to use the services of the Writing Lab of the Learning Resource Center located in the Student Services Building, room 408. Workshops and individual tutoring are available free to all CSUN students. All written assignments except for in-class writing will be graded on mechanics.

All papers and presentations should be typed and in appropriate format [double-spaced, with headers, numbered pages and standard fonts & margins]. Use full & correct citations: UC Berkeley's Resource Page for Citing Resources [Print and Electronic] for what's required in a citation. Web pages generally have authors, titles, dates, etc. All the proper information may not be there but you must cite the information that is available rather than just the URL. For this class, use Modern Languages Association [MLA] style manual format - print out this MLA template for citing various kinds of sources:  http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/MLAstyle.pdf

Academic honesty is expected and required.  Academic dishonesty defrauds all those who depend on the integrity of University courses and is a serious offense covered by Section 41301, Title 5 of the California Administrative Code. This section of the Code is covered in the campus Student Conduct Code - also published in the University Catalog, Schedule of Classes, and the Student Handbook.

this page was last updated on 01/18/2008
send comments and questions to Christie Logan