Enough About Me: Improv in the Classroom and Giving Yourself Gifts

Here's a fun fact about me: I, like many other impressionable souls, did a stint of improv in college, and by a stint, I mean "became enmeshed in improv for five years, including spinoff groups, off-campus shows, and several 24-hour indoor-outdoor marathons during which I rapped outdoors in the chill of the early April air." I spent my 21st birthday presenting at an academic conference and then being elected President of the campus improv group. (For you Bojack Horseman fans: Yes, Todd's experience in the second season seemed a little familiar to me.) For those unfamiliar with the form, improvisational acting encompasses a variety of styles, from games of music, dialogue, and movement (think Whose Line is it Anyway?) to more cohesive long-form scenes which can be comedic or serious.

My toothy grin at receiving the "Greatest Hit" superlative in 2013. Photo from Spiked Punch Lines Improv. 

I learned a ton (and made a lot of friends!) from improv, and I'm not alone. The form has been touted for its applicability in the classroom both as an activity for students and as good practice for instructors. In both cases, key parts of its appeal are its encouragement to work together with others instead of competing with or ignoring them; to listen to another person and build off of what they have said instead of negating it (also known as "Yes, And"); and to accept and try out new ideas without fear of failure. These benefits are similar to those that Reacting to the Past games intend to encourage. Mark Carnes titled a chapter of his book on Reacting to the Past "Learning by Failing." Indeed, the in-game portions of RTTP have much in common with improv-- Mark Higbee describes being in a Reacting game by encouraging us to "Imagine being in a play with no director, no script, and no set conclusion" (48).

However, I admit I don't love the idea of actually doing straight-up improv in most classes, because it is so often used with little investment or warning. Whereas it often seems like it will be a fresh, exciting energizer to instructors, the experience of being a student in a class where you are confronted with Surprise Improv is often characterized by anxiety and/or annoyance (even among those who are outgoing or already do improv). Several articles linked above note that improv exercises trust, and the annoying thing about trust is that it has to be a) slowly built and b) consensually developed. I do think that courses can incorporate improvisation and performance effectively-- if the building of trust between participants occurs regularly and if students are warned about this aspect of the course early on, so that they can decide whether they wish to opt out. 

It's much easier to use a little improv to facilitate better teaching. I won't rehash some of the popular concepts that others have addressed about this connection, some of which can be found here-- these are good connections and for the most part true ones, but they're not the ones I draw from the most. Without a doubt my most evoked improv-related technique is "Give yourself gifts."  I don't know how common this concept is among improv communities; I learned it in a workshop given by Oklahoma City improv duo Twinprov.  One of the titular twins offered this simple suggestion about the very beginning of a scene. "Give yourself gifts," he said, "even before the scene starts." He raised his arm in the air as though he were holding something above his head and explained that unlike the scene that starts with two people slouching neutrally at one another, the scene in which you have a raised arm has an immediate point of interest. It raises a question: what is he holding in the air? You don't have to know the answer to that question immediately, but if you give yourself the gift of having something to hold, you have the opportunity to answer that question in your scene. 

I approach research and teaching with this concept in mind. When I see something of interest to me, even if I'm not sure why it's of interest or what I could use it for, I take a photo, write it down, save the link, etcetera. This is the reason I have photos of research documents that would be great to use in classes that I have no current plans to teach. By making note of primary sources, pieces of information, potential places to take a class or activities to do, I give the instructor I will be in the future, struggling to make some sort of cohesive course, an opportunity to develop a lesson around something that caught my interest even without context. I've also regretted my failing to give myself gifts, such as when I was writing my Greenwich Village post last week and discovered that I had failed to give myself the gift of writing down exactly which of my photos corresponded to which of the tour's listings (thanks, Google Street View!).

The nature of the gift I'm giving myself is also significant. In the improv workshop, the gift could vary but was always physical: holding something in the air, or performing a repetitive motion with your foot, or simply pointing. It is so easy in both improv and teaching to fall back on the strength of your words, simply cracking jokes or stating information without actually evoking a scene or a place. But this is boring, as is obvious when you are sitting in the back of the room but somehow forgettable when you yourself are delivering your fifth witticism of the afternoon. The gift concept reminds me to incorporate not only pictures and words but also movement and three-dimensionality into class activities. If I'm lecturing, I try to move around (sometimes to a fault-- I've been accused of pacing), gesture with my hands, and incorporate at least one thing that requires a little bit of spatial explanation (if colonial Boston is here where I'm standing, Rhode Island is way over there at the other end of the room). In a discussion session, making groups and then combining or redividing them does more than change the people involved;  it changes one's physical context and thus, just slightly, one's mental context. I took several classes from a professor who would make everyone move every once in a while, suggesting that seeing the room from a different vantage point just might help you see the material differently too.

What gifts do you give yourself? Does improv have a place in your classroom or approach to work?