Teaching as transformative performance: Performance as kinesis in an argumentative writing class

Abstract

The paper demonstrates how the notion of 'performance as kinesis' or 'activist performance' (Navera 2007) can be applied to the teaching of argumentative writing. In order to achieve this, the author first revisits his earlier work based on Dwight Conquergood's (1991, 1992, 1995, 2002) notion of 'performance as kinesis' and how such notion may be used to conceptualize facilitation in the teaching and learning context. In this earlier piece, the author argues that when facilitation is seen as performance as kinesis, the teachinglearning situation becomes a site of negotiation, students become responsible co-creators of content and process in the teaching and learning context, and classroom participants exercise self-reflexivity. Following this brief discussion is a sample lesson that aims to demonstrate how the approach is realized in an argumentative writing class. This sample lesson is then subjected to two levels of analysis. The first looks into the significance of the specific activity-based lesson to the teaching of argument while the second points out how the overall framework of organizing the writing lesson enacts the notion of performance as kinesis. In both levels, teachers and students engage in a dialectics of action and reflection (Freire 1972, 1997) that can potentially bring about a change in their ways of thinking and acting. I conclude that the teaching of argumentation becomes transformative when the notion of performance as kinesis is materialized in the teaching-learning context. This is significant to 21st century pedagogy as it encourages the development of critical citizenship crucial to a fast-changing world. © Universiti Putra Malaysia Press.