Peer Review

Scribbling Women - "A Jury of Her Peers"

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Reviewed:: Jan 5, 2010 by English

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Overview:: Scribbling Women is a website created by the Public Media Foundation at Northeastern University, College of Arts and Science. The purpose of this site is to display a cross section of American women writers in a genre called radio drama. These literary works broach challenging themes associated with women and their relationships within American culture and history. The radio drama provides an additional form of literary expression that may be outside of the more traditional classroom learning activities. An advantage of this approach is that it highlights and encourages an auditory learning mode. In addition to reinforcing learning objectives for the literary work, students have the ability to apply the art of listening through active listening skills. The “Home” link on the website provides background about the mission, the history, and the content of Scribbling Women. To learn more about the site, the stories, and the writers, the “About” link provides a summary. For those instructors who might use this site from a theatrical perspective, the “Adapting” link provides background about the dramatists and directors responsible for the creation of the collection. The “Featured Plays” link provides a quick overview of the collection of radio drama plays that are available at the site. For those instructors who may teach more than one of these stories or plays, the site also makes available “The Scribbling Women Multimedia Education Kit” at a cost. The most important link for the instructor is Teaching. This link helps the potential user to understand the radio play. It includes teaching tools, lesson plans, and a history of how these presentations were developed through teacher workshops. In addition, the site can provide excellent supplemental material that reinforces learning objectives in areas such as women’s studies or ethics. The instructor can sign up without cost to access lesson plans, learning assignments, and a teacher’s guide to ensure relativity and validity for the intended goals of learning literary drama in the classroom. “A Jury of Her Peers” is one of fifteen presentations that connect to literature about women. The radio drama for this play complements the learning objectives established for teaching literary drama and provides an enhancement that encourages learners to take in information in a different way. This play provides an example of the approach and methods used to incorporate auditory learning within the literary goals of a literature course.
Type of Material:: Tutorial and others
Recommended Uses:: The radio drama provides a contemporary approach to the teaching of literature especially for those students who often struggle with the written word. The recommendation for this module is to use it to enhance the learning objectives for the literary drama, “A Jury of Her Peers.” • Supplemental material for in class objectives of teaching drama using the play, “A Jury of Her Peers.” • Team assignments to listen and interpret in relation to literary elements of drama.
Technical Requirements:: Explorer; audio capability required; most current version of Media Player: 28.8 or 56K
Identify Major Learning Goals:: At the completion of this auditory learning experience for “A Jury of Her Peers”, students will be able to: • demonstrate active listening skills geared toward the emotional nuances inherent in tone, pitch, sound, and noise. • evaluate the play with an emphasis on how involvement in an auditory role enhances the performance of drama and the understanding of the written word. • use auditory learning to expand analysis of literary elements such as character development, plot, point of view, imagery, symbol and theme. • analyze theme in relation to moral versus legal ethics. • identify characteristics that speak to women’s roles in the particular culture and history of that period.
Target Student Population:: The target population is the literature classroom. However, “A Jury of Her Peers” is applicable in other settings with appropriate introduction and direction from the instructor. • College: Freshmen, lower division, upper division • High School: any level. • Discipline: Primary application for “A Jury of Her Peers” is literature but other settings include theater, ethics, and women’s studies.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:: Students using these supplemental materials for “A Jury of Her Peers” need to have: • Knowledge of literary elements of drama including character development, plot, point of view, theme, imagery, and symbolism. • Understanding of the importance of sound and music in drama. • Understanding of how to employ active listening skills. • Basic computer skills to navigate a web site.

Content Quality

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Strengths:: Overall, this module is relevant since it addresses a more contemporary mode of learning and understanding that is not driven by the written word. • The module is an auditory learning experience that connects to the primary use of voice, pitch, tone, and sound in literary drama. • Gardiner’s Intelligences approach informs us of the validity of using this approach to learning in the classroom. • This learning tool extends outside the literature discipline to encourage and develop active listening skills for the participant. • “A Jury of Her Peers” offers a valid and reliable challenge to students concerning the application of law versus moral interpretation of what is right. • The module can be organized by history or theme to assist the instruction in an appropriate approach to presentation of the radio drama. • The module supports the exploration of cultural and historical perspectives that influenced women of that period.
Concerns:: Some concerns about this module include: • The module is not self-contained and requires the instructor to lay a foundation of key elements in the literary drama. • The instructor will also need to acquaint students with art of active listening skills to ensure learning is embraced in this auditory learning mode. • It takes some searching and reading for the instructor to “dig out” how this module can be relative to teaching literary elements in a literature class. • The module contains support materials such as lesson plans but there may be a level of frustration since access is determined through “signing up” which may deter some instructors from taking advantage of this approach. The voice pattern on the screen may be distracting to some students. The teacher's kits must be purchased, but there is sufficient material available for free on the site.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

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Strengths:: The effectiveness of this module lies in its clear and concise presentation of dramatic elements that may not be easily defined in a classroom setting where “reading” the material is the key method of absorbing the information. • The module, “A Jury of Her Peers” provides an oral perspective of the condition and life style of women related to this period. • The module does clearly connect the concept of theme and the use of sound, voice, and tone into their importance to literary drama. • The instructor can easily construct teaching aids or methods that incorporate both independent and team involvement in the learning process.
Concerns:: Some areas of concern for this module are: • As a learning tool, this website and its contents can be construed as gender biased since its focus is on women writers only. • A foundation must be established to help students relate their auditory learning to the key literary elements of drama. • Students must be versed in literary techniques such as character development, setting, plot, point of view, imagery, and symbolism. • Students require a foundation in active listening skills to notice voice and tone along with sounds, music, and noise that are used to convey meaning in the radio drama. • Although some students can learn rapidly through this mode of presentation, other students may struggle without the story to support understanding. The heavily colored background may make reading off the screen challenging.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

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Strengths:: This module’s most appealing assets are: • The learner can easily access and use the auditory module when the instructor sets the stage. • The material is repeatable and allows the student to progress or to repeat in relation to his or her comfort level with the information heard and absorbed. The sidebar easily guides the user to resources.
Concerns:: This module does have some areas that can present barriers for learners. • Instructions need to be outlined clearly for the instructor on where to find the various supporting materials that go with the learning module. Closely related to this clarity is the need to have the instructor understand that this website is free and does not require a donation to use it. • Students as users need to have set goals for the “take away” from this learning experience. • Usability is defined in terms of “setting the stage” for student involvement in this listening experience. • The lack of the ability to interact could influence learners who are more “hands on” to explore other parts of the site or internet when they become disconnected from the auditory needs to accomplish learning thus group activities may be a more appropriate venue.

Other Issues and Comments:: Additional information about this module includes: • Despite initial ambiguity in how this web site can be of value, further exploration revealed an excellent approach to hitting all learning modes while challenging students to develop active listening skills. • The approach provides variety to the teaching approaches available to the instructor and requires minimal work to incorporate into the teaching of drama in the classroom. The authoring foundation solicits donations at the site.
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