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J.S. Peterson | Pedagogy
Carpenter Mentor
Summer 2023. This last summer I was hired as a master Carpenter at the Utah Festival Opera. I was tasked with teaching young technicians how to be stage carpenters teaching best practices and safety in the shop. This job allowed me time to work 1on1, leading crews, and mentoring individuals while building and problem-solving on several summer stock shows
Behind The Scenes Summer Camp (Lesson Planner)
Summer 2023. This last summer I built and was paid to create lesson plans for the facilitators of the scenic and lighting workshops for the Behind the Scenes summer camp. I was originally going to lead the workshops but I came down with Covid-19 and such passed my lesson on to a substitute facilitator
Clinical Experience (Logan High School)
Spring 2023. I had the opportunity to work as an observing clinical student at Logan High School. My mentor teacher asked me if I wanted to design the set and lead the stagecraft class in building it. So for a large part of the last half of the semester, I led a class of about 30 students in safely building their entire set.
Methods of Teaching Drama (7-12)
Fall 2022. In this class, I created three lesson plans for 7-12 theatre classrooms. Such as; acting, tech, and playscript analysis. Along with those lessons, we created a whole-year curriculum plan for two classes and a year-long season selection for a school with calendars, budget, selected plays, and much more. Stacking all these planning assessments together was great preparation for how it will be while teaching in high schools.
Behind The Scenes Summer Camp
Summer 2022. This was an excellent opportunity to get paid to teach technical theatre lessons that I got to develop from scratch. It was a great time to work with these students over the two workshops I led. This also allowed me to co-teach with a second facilitator and learn how to work with each other bouncing off ideas to one another.
Theatre For Young Audiences
Spring 2022. For this class, we devised a theatre for the very young play Dissy's Dinner. We all contributed to devising the story, then we cast roles in the show and performed it for the community. We also created a resource packet for the teachers and students who were coming to see another show Getting Near to Baby. For this packet, I co-created a lesson plan and also participated in filming a theatre etiquette video to teach students how to behave in a theatre. After seeing how many forms of theatre for young audiences exist I have completely revised my assumptions about what it can be and who it is for. I see how essential it is to the theatre industry.
Drama Across the Curriculum
Spring 2022. In this class, I created multiple lessons adding drama to other core courses. This included an arts enhancement lesson Tyranny or Treaty created with Brooklyn Pendleton. An arts integration lesson I Can Do That! Co-collaborated and Facilitated at Edith Bowen Lab school, and another arts integration solo lesson The Darkside of Light. This class was a great training ground for growing my facilitation and lesson-planning skills. I have both begun to connect my process planning to standards and have also grown in my confidence in classroom management.
Methods of Teaching Drama (K-6)
Fall 2021. In this class, I was asked to co-create two lesson plans for K-6 classrooms. The first lesson plan was a story dramatization based on the children's picture book, Pepita Talks Twice. At the end of this course, we facilitated a lesson for 4th grade based on "The Paper Bag Princess" by Robert Munsch at Edith Bowen Laboratory School. In this lesson, we taught students about gender roles and assisted them in creating shadow puppets and performing original commercials.
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