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MARCH 2005

Find Your Voice: A Methodology for Enhancing Literacy Through Re-Writing and Re-Acting
By Gail Noppe-Brandon

Reviewed By Joan Baum, PH.D.

Though the title sounds academic, Noppe-Brandon’s own voice is conversational. In a field where jargon and bloat often mask even good advice, Noppe-Brandon shows no fat. Her prose is lean, her tone supremely confident, her rationale and recommendations sharp, practical and to the point. It’s hard to believe that she was once a voiceless, shy student, extremely fearful of speaking or writing in class—and therefore hostile. “It wasn’t until I began to learn the crafts of acting and playwriting, as a young adult, that I found my voice,” she writes, but it’s clear that she feels informed and compassionate instruction should have come much earlier. Belatedly, she discovered how much students could learn to listen by acting and learn to talk by engaging in the processes of playwriting—not the usual way of addressing such skills. And though she committed herself to work with students “of all ages and backgrounds, during and after school, in theatres and social service organizations, in workshops that ran for a full year or for only three weeks, or once a week,” she challenged herself most by taking on those youngsters designated “at risk.” Her mission has remained constant: to show that teachers can overcome communication fears in their students by instilling trust in her and in the other members of the group. Central to this methodology is what she calls an “integrated approach” that embraces “re-acting” and “re-writing,” words that signal emphasis on process and reinforcement.

The goals are clear, the scenario accounts of the slow but steady progress made by the different youngsters impressive. Indeed, if there’s a drawback in this slim overview, it may be the extent to which Noppe-Brandon uses her own experience as rationale: if I could do it, so can you. Her psychological insights, compassion, humor, intellectual focus, and indefatigable patience may prove intimidating to those who do not have the time or analytical wherewithal to keep at it. In short, the author-teacher, who prefers to be called a “coach,” would seem to be a hard act to follow. She would probably demur, pointing out that the theory and examples stand on their own and not on her personality. Well, yes and no. They do talk, don’t they, of “gifted” teachers in the sense of born not made? Throughout, Noppe-Brandon repeatedly notes the twenty years she has spent perfecting her craft, honing guidelines and selecting texts and repeatedly declares that what she presents here works “unfailingly.” She also assumes that her readers may be in part “mute,” which may be a bit off-putting. Still, it’s hard to fault her passion and perceptions. Free writing, for example, which had some bad press in the permissive sixties, is here reclaimed in all its rigor. Drafts and tryouts, which often went unread, are now integral parts of a final product destined for performance. Nothing is given away; everything is earned.

Noppe-Brandon, who says she discovered her methodology by accident, certainly left accident out of the picture when she went on to develop a Teacher Training initiative for teachers of all subjects, not just English, who wanted to help their students become (more) articulate. She has been a college dean, a foundation program director, a playwright/director, and an award winning teacher. She can now claim to be an educator in the very best sense of the word as one who would invigorate well intentioned but frustrated teachers to help students find their voice and have fun doing so.#
(Heinemann, 157 pp., including appendices and glossary, $18.95)

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