FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
about (OUT)LAWS & JUSTICE
What is
(OUT)LAWS & JUSTICE?
(OUT)LAWS & JUSTICE is a grade eight interdisciplinary
curriculum integrating the multiple subjects of history/social
studies, language arts and drama. The curriculum is framed in
such a way that compels students to critically reflect on
westward expansion, to discover the mythic hegemonies of the
Wild West on contemporary culture, public policies and their
individual lives. The project culminates in student–written and
–performed plays. Performances are presented to the student body
at participating school campuses, and to parents and the
community in public venues.
The purpose of (OUT)LAWS & JUSTICE is to foster a civil and just
society through a sustained and focused interdisciplinary
curriculum of theatre arts, history and language arts. The goals
are to develop students’ critical thinking about the roots of
violence, and to instill conflict-resolution skills to resolve
disputes peacefully.
David Vigilante, Associate Director, National Center for History
in the Schools at UCLA, wrote the (OUT)LAWS & JUSTICE
standards-based student work/textbook and the teachers’ guide.
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What
are the goals of (OUT)LAWS & JUSTICE?
One of the assumptions of (OUT)LAWS & JUSTICE is that an inverse
relationship exists between literacy and violence. In other
words, students who learn to make meaning of the world around
them (expanding the idea of reading the text to include
interpretation of movies and advertising seen, music heard, and
the culminating plays (OUT)LAWS & JUSTICE students write and
perform), thereafter come to value alternatives to violence. The
goals are to improve literacy and critical thinking, nurture a
deepened interest in academic study, and teach effective
conflict resolution skills. Working in small learning groups,
students learn to work together effectively, to listen well to
one another, to acknowledge diverse points of view, and to
identify and solve problems.
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Is the (OUT)LAWS & JUSTICE curriculum standards-based?
The (OUT)LAWS & JUSTICE curriculum is standards-based. The
measurable objectives are to increase achievement in literacy by
meeting National Learning Standards in history-social science,
language arts and theater arts; to enable students to comprehend
alternatives to violent behavior by equipping them with the
tools to analyze sources and consequences of violent conflict
and, to learn conflict resolution skills through using drama to
create learning and change.
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Why is the
project in middle school?
In the United States, there is a great need for middle school
students to improve literacy, develop critical thinking skills,
demonstrate high achievement on tests, and keep themselves out
of trouble. Middle school students are especially vulnerable to
multiple risks leading to decreases in achievement and increases
in antisocial behavior. Too often this is the consequence of
over-exposure to passive and detached teaching approaches. To
reverse student alienation and high rates of violent behaviors
there is a great need to establish active, integrated learning
environments where students and teachers can become deeply
engaged in reading, writing, and inquiry while using their
creative capacities to explore the ethical dimensions of a
curriculum. Because there are so few curricula that successfully
provides learning that encourages students to understand
violence in historical and contemporary contexts, and provide
students opportunities to safely examine alternatives to
violence, (OUT)LAWS & JUSTICE seeks to address this need.
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What are the recurring themes throughout the curriculum?
In (OUT)LAWS & JUSTICE, students explore four core American
values of “justice,” “honor,” “rugged individualism,” and the
“right of self defense.” These recurring themes are evident in
historic sevents of westward expansion. In their plays, students
show their grasp of these concepts and how they resonate in
their lives today. From what they learn, students forge
connections from these dictates of times past to the lives they
are leading in the present, and in this process they discover
that behavior and attitudes are often learned and can be
changed.
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Why
teach the history of the American West?
Leading academics identify the study of history, in relation to
current realities, as a powerful tool in promoting empathy and
understanding for the “other,” and thus as a means for changing
attitudes and behavior to the benefit of the community.
Children, like adults, have absorbed the archetype of the
Western myths and their assumptions of violence. Popular
concepts of the West are found in everyday speech as well as in
cultural icons like the characters in the movies “Toy Story” and
“Shane.” They are typically facile, incomplete allusions.
Western imagery and terminology are commonly used to describe,
perhaps even justify, aggression and violent responses to
challenge. For example, the bravado of “the walkdown” dramatized
in the movie, “High Noon.”
By exploring the history of the American West, students learn
to better identify patterns of violence and aggression, and how
their own lives are in part shaped by the mythic violent themes
of our American heritage and popular culture. Our objective is
to foster non-violent interactions to conflict.
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Why integrate theater activities into the core curriculum?
Brain-based learning research clearly indicates that optimal
learning requires emotional involvement in a meaningful context.
Drama in the classroom immediately places students into an
emotionally charged learning environment where they do the
thinking, talking, decision-making and problem solving. Drama
teaching strategies involve interactive, reflective, shared,
creative learning experiences based on working in role. Students
who have experienced the drama process have a deeper
understanding of issues and emotional investment in the content
and storyline of a performance.
Resident theatre artists meet with students once weekly to
develop theater skills, including playwriting, voice, diction,
improvisation, and acting. Theatre artists apply the Visual and
Performing Arts: Theatre Content Standards: artistic perception;
creative expression; historical and cultural context; aesthetic
valuing; connections, relationships and applications. Through
character-based improvisations and monologues, using voice
techniques, blocking, and gesture to enhance meaning, students
develop characters and stories; they write plays.
The theater artist works closely with the teacher, tailoring
theater activities to support the classroom teacher’s lesson
plan. In the process, classroom teachers learn drama strategies
to apply across subject areas.
In the beginning, students are shy. As they develop trust
within themselves and in one another they become confident
actors who master the material academically and emotionally.
“You can’t just read it,” one student explained. “You have to
know it!”
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What teaching methods does (OUT)LAWS & JUSTICE encourage?
(OUT)LAWS & JUSTICE is committed to encouraging individual and
small group learning that is both experiential and intellectual.
(OUT)LAWS & JUSTICE written materials are constantly linked to
the students’ own experiences. Students actively engage in
drama, discussions, writing and developing their own written
work. Students share their personal experiences with authority,
law and order, and their own understandings of violent
confrontation. They compare and contrast their experiences with
historic conflicts documented in the primary source materials
that make up over sixty percent of the (OUT)LAWS & JUSTICE
work/textbook.
This approach is married with the proven pedagogy of theatre
and role-playing to enhance the learning and empathy-building
process. During a critical phase of adolescent development,
these combined methods afford a unique environment for students
to forge alternatives to pervasive atmospheres of violence. In
the field of violence reduction, the Centers for Disease Control
has identified this kind of learning as a “best practice.”
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Is
the curriculum specific only to California?
No. The historical events covered in the (OUT)LAWS & JUSTICE
textbook took place across the West, mainly in the region west
of the Mississippi River, but also in the states that were torn
apart as a result of the Civil War. Moreover, the themes that
drove Manifest Destiny—ranging from government policies to media
that included novels, journalism, and advertising—began on the
east coast of the United States. For example, an Easterner wrote
the first Western novel. The Virginian by Owen Wister, helped
establish the cowboy as an archetypical, individualist hero.
Wister was a Harvard-educated lawyer from Philadelphia and
personal friend of Theodore Roosevelt. He is credited with
creating the basic Western myths and themes that have come to be
understood as “American.” The values that have formed the
American character or identity resonate throughout the United
States.
Because many students receive most of their information about
the American West from movies and popular culture, it is
difficult for many of them to believe that their race or culture
played a vital role in establishing America’s frontier. Using
primary source materials students learn about the battles for
economic power, religious freedom and justice for all. In
(OUT)LAWS & JUSTICE students of color, students whose families
are recent immigrants, and students for whom English is a second
language, will recognize their forefathers/mothers in America’s
past. Through an inclusive and experiential curriculum students
discover links between the past and the present. Using newly
developed skills and depth of knowledge, students deconstruct
Western myths and take what they learn in the classroom out into
the world that is both theirs and ours. The goal is for students
to become informed and active participants in society.
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What professional development is offered by (OUT)LAWS & JUSTICE?
(OUT)LAWS & JUSTICE offers professional development for
classroom teachers and teaching artists in a five-day institute,
with follow-up training days and coaching throughout the year.
Classroom teachers do not need theater training to implement the
program. In our experience, teachers take what they learn from
the teacher artists and use these theater activities in their
other classes.
The training objectives are:
1. Train classroom teachers and theatre artists how to integrate
(OUT)LAWS & JUSTICE content while teaching process drama skills.
2. Help students’ gain experiential understanding of core
American values that drove westward expansion and to select and
use drama strategies they have learned so that they themselves
claim ownership of their learning.
3. Broaden awareness that the process of creating and performing
is compatible with traditional theatre training in which, often,
the performance itself is the primary goal.
4. Teach strategies that will engage students who are reluctant
to perform.
These objectives are met through a total of 66 training hours.
Teaching artists follow national, state and theatre arts
standards. (OUT)LAWS & JUSTICE teacher training encourages
teaching for conceptual understanding, and conforms to the
sub-fields of multiple intelligence theory and whole brain
learning— theories gaining acceptance internationally for all
age levels.
The dramatic strategies are inspired by the work of Dorothy
Heathcote, an esteemed pioneer in the field of Educational
Drama. The Heathcote strategy is known as “Mantle of the
Expert.” Similar strategies are referred to as contextual drama
or process drama.
To sharpen their abilities to teach (OUT)LAWS & JUSTICE, theatre
artists and classroom teachers are invited to adopt a more
critically aware sense of their own beliefs and behaviors that
are infused with Western myths. Teachers learn to use various
theater techniques such as suspense, tension, focus, contrast
and symbolization, specifically chosen to address complex
questions that deepen understanding about the historical and
current realities of the Code of the West and the Code of the
Street. Demanding cognitive activities such as speculation,
interpretation, evaluation and reflection are promoted.
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How are the
classes structured?
Eighth-grade history and English teachers team-teach in order to
strand the program across the curriculum. (OUT)LAWS & JUSTICE is
taught in an elective period linked to their history and
language arts classes. Classes are scheduled back-to-back,
providing a three-hour block of uninterrupted study for 36
weeks. Theatre teaching artists work once weekly in two hour
sessions throughout the 36 weeks.
As the classes are divided into small groups, these groups
begin to collaborate, inspire and learn from one another. They
then each present their research findings and their ideas to the
other groups in the class. In this way, their engagement becomes
authentic, energized, and motivated in ways that go beyond what
their teachers might have imagined possible. Individual and
group learning, as defined by Harvard’s Project Zero, becomes
evident. Student essays, photographs and, ultimately, their
plays document and make their learning visible.
What materials and resources are needed for the program?
The (OUT)LAWS & JUSTICE textbook and the accompanying teacher’s
guide are the necessary materials. The program also requires a
theater-teaching artist for each school.
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What makes (OUT)LAWS & JUSTICE an effective program?
Students are keenly interested in issues of violence and
justice. The stereotypes of the cowboy/outlaw that characterize
the American West — its myths and its realities — provide
examples of the stereotypes that youth identify with. As the
roles of drama and acting are strongly appreciated among youth,
(OUT)LAWS & JUSTICE provides a powerful link between existing
youth culture and applying what they know to their exploration
of values and events of the westward expansion. Students may
take on all kinds of roles and demonstrate a tremendous empathy
for all sides of an issue. Their work relates to their
relationships with parents, teachers, and friends, each of whom
makes different demands. Students begin to better understand
their culture and to better define that which they struggle with
within themselves.
Further, teachers, students, support staff, administrators
and community partners are each and all viewed as critical
allies in (OUT)LAWS & JUSTICE. They work together, share
expertise, and exercise leadership to achieve a sustainable
collaboration.
The Teacher’s Guide also includes the Theatre Residency
Sequence Outline. This outline serves as a blueprint for the
development of the student–written and –performed (OUT)LAWS &
JUSTICE plays.
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How can I start the (OUT)LAWS & JUSTICE program at my school?
It’s as easy as contacting the program’s director,
Lisa Citron
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(OUT)LAWS & JUSTICE is a project of
Community Partners
1000 North Alameda, Ste. 240
Los Angeles CA 90012
(213) 346-3226
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