"Taking Them Seriously"

providing youth with the environment they desperately need

In 2018, I finished my doctoral dissertation. Titled Taking Them Seriously, the research explored students’ participation in a playwriting festival for teenage writers and its potential influence on a participant’s personal and/or professional growth. I interviewed six adults whose original plays were produced in a staged reading with professional actors as part of the annual New Jersey Young Playwrights Festival, a program I administered for 15 years as an employee of a new play development company in northern NJ. The research participants reflected on their experiences as young writers and I analyzed the resulting interview data for common themes.

One theme that stood out most prominently gave birth to the title of the publication. Youth thrive when they are placed into an environment where they are challenged to operate as experts. Rather than be told what to do or what not to do, rather than be told what they’ve written is “right” or “wrong”, the youth were taken seriously in their roles as creative people - as artists. This sparked some methods of self-identification that lead to future success or positive revelation. Providing such an environment for students could have profound impact - doing so long-term would have astounding benefits. I feel that this excerpt from the conclusion section of my dissertation explains it well:

The art of playwriting engages student learning with imagination and critical thinking to explore the thoughts and questions that a student writer may have about a topic, observation, or experience (Chapman 1983b). Chapman (1983a) also saw the production of youth-written scripts by professional theatre artists as a way to empower young people by emphasizing the seriousness of their work. Former young playwrights interviewed by Harris (2014) found similar comforts in the collaborative design between professional actors and directors and writers at the center of the national program run by Young Playwrights, In., which Chapman helped create.

In my study, Chapman’s assertions about the value of youth engagement and empowerment were supported by participants’ remembered experiences of camaraderie and collaboration with professional theatre artists. Through this arrangement, participants felt supported in their views as a young person, validated in the work they created, and encouraged in their potential as writers. Similarly, adult playwrights interviewed for the TDF publication Outrageous Fortune (London, Pesner, & Voss, 2009) valued the same kind of collaborative environment in which to pursue their art and called for increased opportunities to develop new work with a company of actors, directors, and other theatre professionals. Undoubtedly, many adult playwrights sought longevity in this work as a means to take risks and may effectively improve their writing. Similar longevity in the opportunities afforded young playwrights would bear additional benefits (178-179).

It is with that in mind that I turn to my classroom procedures and curricula this summer for significant revisions. My pedagogy is rooted in the idea of taking youth creators seriously. Now it is time for the paperwork to support that ideal.

I also recommend that we all find ways to support youth as experts, or at least as respected and serious collaborators in the classrooms we lead. It may just be the missing ingredient for stimulating the type of critical thinking, self-reflection, and engaged learning we all so desperately seek (and need)!