Lauren Esposito
A
Saying “Yes, and” to
Collaborative Prewriting:
How Improvisational Theater
Ignites Creativity and
Discovery in Student Writing
ll writers face the challenge of getting started. Whether novice or
experienced, they must come to
terms with the daunting task of
filling up a blank page, or screen, in an effort to
produce writing. Student writers are no different.
They enter our classes having confronted similar
difficulties with discovering what it is they want
to say. In seeking to help students, we devote explicit instruction to prewriting, an aspect of our
teaching also known as invention in the study of
rhetoric. We offer strategies and instructional tools
for generating, or inventing, ideas that take the
form of written outlines, lists, idea webs, visual
maps, and freewriting, and that serve to stimulate
thought while providing students with conceptual
models for linking and organizing ideas. Less often,
though, are students invited to brainstorm in more
dynamic, collaborative ways that get them out of
their seats and speaking, acting, and moving with
others in an environment that fosters spontaneity,
inquiry, and creativity.
Given that the capacity to invent is so crucial
to writing, it is important that we supplement conventional prewriting with more innovative methods that also spark discovery and require students
to move beyond formulaic approaches. Exploring
the arts in English language arts opens our practice
to new ways of training students to generate, develop, and interact with ideas, while heightening
their ability to enter into new conversations and
perspectives in a collaborative setting. One area of
the dramatic arts that places a high value on the
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Strategies and techniques
inspired by improvisational
theater provide student
writers with a framework
for generating new
ideas, entering into new
conversations, and
gaining new perspectives.
capacity to invent widely, and stands to benefit students in their work as writers, is improvisational
theater.
Ask any actor, director, or drama instructor
to describe the appeal of improvisational acting and
he or she will likely identify the promise of creating something from nothing with others. Unlike
stand-­
up comedy, which emphasizes the quick-­
witted nature of an individual performer, improvisation tends to emerge from the input of an entire
group, drawing on the collective talents, strengths,
and imaginations of its members. R. Keith Sawyer
writes that improvisational theater is built on the
“collaborative creativity” of actors who generate ideas
on the spot as they craft never-­before-­seen characters
and scenes together on stage (62). Developing this
atmosphere of collaboration, spontaneity, and discovery is something we strive to do in our classrooms,
especially when we teach writing. It plays a vital
role in injecting life and creative risks into students’
prose, which makes the environment and techniques
of improvisation more compatible with our teaching
than we might initially think. When we ask students
to invent, or brainstorm, we essentially ask them to
improvise. We ask them to think off the cuff, suggest ideas spontaneously, converse with others about
different thoughts and perspectives, and contribute whatever comes to mind without yet worrying
about editing, proofreading, or revising their ideas.
Prewriting activities that are based in improvisation
then support what we already do with students while
offering new pathways to igniting creativity and collaboration in our classrooms.
English Journal 105.5 (2016): 42–47
Copyright © 2016 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved.
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Exploring these pathways became a touchstone as I started to adapt strategies and exercises
familiar to improvisation, or improv, to enrich
students’ experiences with prewriting. I first developed the strategy outlined in this article with
first-­
year college students as they brainstormed
ideas for a persuasive writing assignment. Students
wrote research-­based letters to local leaders about a
social or environmental problem affecting a nearby
community. I incorporated improv into prewriting
with the intended goal of improving idea generation among students and encouraging them to create content for writing that grew from authentic
and collaborative interactions with others instead of
being teacher-­driven. Since then, I continue to use
this strategy with first-­year college students and
with preservice English teachers, given that this
approach is appropriate for teaching student writers in secondary and postsecondary classrooms. The
teachers I have worked with have gone on to adapt
it for other forms of writing in their high school
English classes, including argumentative writing,
writing about a novel, and even writing to apply
for a job. Introducing improv-­based prewriting to
a variety of writing situations can lead students to
explore multiple views and generate creative, informed responses to the texts they read and write.
Improv for Student Writers
For English teachers, employing performance-­
based approaches to actively engage students is not
a new phenomenon. In fact, recently, in the May
2015 issue of English Journal, Melissa Talhelm invites us to imagine our classrooms as “an improvisational performance and learning space” to rethink
our interactions with students and their contributions as a valuable part of everyday lessons (15).
Using improvisation to explicitly engage student
writers, however, has not been explored as deeply.
Jeffrey D. Wilhelm describes in “You Gotta BE
the Book”: Teaching Engaged and Reflective Reading
with Adolescents that drama allows students to gain
“entry into a textual world” through “a meaningful mode for moving around in that textual world,
making meaning of it and in it, and of observing
and reflecting on the world and its meaning” (128).
Similarly, in her book Assessment Live! 10 Real-­Time
Ways for Kids to Show What They Know—­and Meet the
Standards, Nancy Steineke argues for performance
as an authentic form of assessment that “requires
students to use higher-­order thinking skills” and
create a product that is “the result of synthesis, the
act of manipulating and transforming knowledge in
order to create something new and different” (10).
Having students perform readers theater, spoken-­
word poetry, and tableaux, for example, represents
highly interactive and authentic responses to various texts and promotes elevated levels of critical
thinking and engagement. Having students also
perform improv-­inspired exercises as part of prewriting offers highly engaging methods of interpreting and producing text, while offering students
a collaborative and embodied framework for literacy learning.
The objective of asking students to prewrite
in unconventional ways is to expose them to new
writing strategies and provide meaningful contexts
for discovery that go beyond producing evidence of
brainstorming for a grade.
In their examination of con- The objective of asking
temporary writing instruc- students to prewrite in
tion, Sharon Crowley and unconventional ways
Debra Hawhee argue that is to expose them to
students’ experience with new writing strategies
prewriting is often limand provide meaningful
ited to the creation of thesis statements and written contexts for discovery
outlines without extensive that go beyond producing
attention to the contexts, evidence of brainstorming
audiences, and purposes for for a grade.
writing (xii). Writing instruction that overemphasizes form and formulaic
writing shortchanges important processes whereby
students observe, infer, interpret, and synthesize
new information to develop their own claims, express their own thoughts, and construct their own
arguments.
Deborah Dean writes that students often
“have limited knowledge about their topics, they
have limited strategies by which to access more
knowledge (either in their own heads or outside
themselves), and they are reluctant to spend time
on these processes that they don’t consider valuable
for their writing” (99). Prewriting based in improvisation teaches students how to generate ideas
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How Improvisational Theater Ignites Creativity and Discovery in Student Writing
collaboratively, deepens their understanding of an
argument or claim, and creates genuine opportunities for students to experience the impact of invention on the quality of their writing.
Saying “Yes, and” as Prewriting
The approach to prewriting I teach is guided by a
central tenet in improvisation, which is to affirm,
rather than negate, a fellow improviser’s idea. Without this principle, the creative wheels of improv
risk coming to a screeching halt. The development
of a scene depends largely on “an unspoken agreement between improvisers on stage: ‘You bring a
brick, and I bring a brick. Then together, we build
a house’” (Halpern, Close, and Johnson 52–­53).
This method of scene-­building is played out in the
choices and suggestions improvisers make. For example, one improviser may start a scene by saying,
“Hey, Mom, can I borrow the car Saturday night?”
while another answers with, “Yes, and you’ll need
to fill up the tank when you’re done.” Together,
these improvisers affirm the original premise of the
scene and build on it to enrich the story line. In the
context of teaching writing, this underlying principle is especially significant given that students
often dismiss or judge an idea out of fear they may
say or write something wrong or unintelligent. I
introduce students to the concept and strategy of
“Yes, and” so that they may generate ideas by readily affirming and elaborating on suggestions, ideas,
and arguments put forth by themselves and others.
Before students begin brainstorming with
“Yes, and” for their persuasive writing assignment,
I model the exercise with the entire class. We stand
in a circle, away from our desks, pens, pencils, notebooks, and computers, and focus our attention on
watching, listening, and responding to each other’s
ideas. We start by collaboratively crafting a story
about a fictitious character in an imagined situation. I explain to students that our goal is to create
a cohesive story by accepting all ideas, which requires that we pay close attention to each person’s
suggestion and respond with creative twists and
turns. I then ask a student to introduce our story
and character with an opening sentence that begins with the proverbial phrase “once upon a time.”
After this sentence is shared, each student, in turn,
adds a detail to the plot, characterization, or setting
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by contributing one statement that begins with the
words “Yes, and.” Saying these words compels students to affirm and acknowledge what has already
been said before introducing a new idea. It also emphasizes the importance of accepting each other’s
creative choices without labeling them as “right”
or “wrong.”
Inventing with “Yes, and”
Once students have an understanding of “Yes, and”
as both an exercise and a framework for thinking,
I focus their attention, not on creating a story, but
on exploring an important claim, or argument,
they want to make in their persuasive letters. In
the past, students have identified a range of issues
for this assignment, including limited parking on
campus, increasing class sizes, and a rise in sports-­
related injuries. To begin the next phase of this
approach to prewriting, students write down their
major claim or stance on the issue in a sentence,
which forms the basis of the dialogue they perform
next in pairs or small groups. Students improvise
responses and reactions to each other’s statements
in the same way they generate ideas for the collaborative story, although this time they gather ideas,
examples, reasons, and evidence they might include
in their letters.
I usually time the exercise for approximately
two to three minutes, which encourages students to
brainstorm as many ideas as possible in the allotted
time and to offer spontaneous, in-­the-­moment responses without rejecting or negating anyone’s suggestions, even their own. While students work in
their assigned pairs or small groups, I listen in and
coach them through moments when the conversation slows down or when students appear confused.
To emphasize the importance of listening and responding off the cuff, I encourage students to wait
until the end of the exercise before writing down
any thoughts or reactions that emerge so that they
maintain a continuous dialogue.1
Students produce highly spontaneous conversations that reveal associations and patterns in
their thinking. One idea or suggestion often leads
to another, which likely sparks some kind of connection or relationship to a third idea in students’
minds. The improvised dialogue, for the most part,
reflects ideas, thoughts, and opinions inspired by
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Lauren Esposito
the statement students write; however, I remind
students to embrace all ideas even if they appear
unrelated at first. These ideas also play a vital role
in stimulating processes of discovery. Kim and
Margaret, two detail-­oriented and sometimes outspoken students, performed “Yes, and” first by focusing on ideas for Kim’s letter. Kim wanted to see
increased salaries and improved working conditions
for employees at a fast-­food restaurant where she
worked during the summer. An excerpt from Kim
and Margaret’s conversation illustrates the kinds of
responses this exercise elicits:2
Kim: Salaries should be increased for workers
who demonstrate high work ethic and
morale.
Margaret: Yes, and that will create more of
an incentive to work harder in sch . . . in
your job.
Kim: Yes, and this will lead to a higher
productive rate from the company.
Margaret: Yes, and this will lead to happier,
um, customers.
Kim: Yes, and customer satisfaction is half of
the profit.
Margaret: Yes, and more profit will lead to
happier stockholders.
Kim: Yes, and happier stockholders will lead
to more business from those stockholders.
Margaret: Yes, and more business from the
stockholders will lead to more money going
into the company.
Kim: Yes, and more money means more
money for the employees.
Working within the structures of the exercise,
Kim and Margaret collectively generated a range
of potential reasons for improving salaries for hard-­
working employees as well as possible outcomes
that would likely appeal to Kim’s employer. In
her reaction to using improvisation to brainstorm,
Kim explained that “it definitely gave you that new
perspective, getting into someone else’s paper, into
their thoughts, and having them get into yours.”
Students are more likely to think beyond their own
point of view and explore alternative perspectives
when they collaborate with others.
Using “Yes, and” to inspire prewriting contributes to a multifaceted view of the topics and
arguments students choose to write about in their
letters. It prompts them to work together to produce an array of unplanned responses and provides a
concrete way of practicing Peter Elbow’s believing
game, which highlights the importance of generating ideas by “trying to be as welcoming or accepting as possible to every idea we encounter: not
just listening to views different from our own and
holding back from arguing with them” (2). During
the “Yes, and” exercise, students must believe each
other’s arguments to imagine and invent new ideas
from another’s perspective. In an effort to highlight
this aspect of “Yes, and,” I often ask students to revise their initial statements to reflect an opposing
view, one with which they disagree, and then perform the exercise.
Thinking and acting in this way, though difficult at times, allows students to explore the motivations and rationales guiding alternate views for
this assignment. Saying “Yes, and” to an argument
and generating new ideas from it is quite different
from simply asking students to consider an opposing view in their writing. As a result, students
discover and think through the kinds of material
that might potentially increase the persuasiveness
of their letters, especially in the form of counterarguments that anticipate others’ concerns, thoughts,
or attitudes.
From Improvised Dialogue to Writing
Drawing on the principles and structures of improvisation to create a learning space for prewriting
motivates students to take creative risks, experiment with new ideas, and transform their writing.
At different times when teaching with “Yes, and,”
I have asked students to perform the exercise both
before producing a draft of their letter and in between drafts. While we call it prewriting, it is important to remind students that writers continue
to brainstorm ideas throughout composing. When
comparing one student’s drafts, I noted the potential of improvisation to help students generate new
ideas and demonstrate relationships between them.
In the final draft of her persuasive letter, Nicole decided to draw connections between several of her
original ideas, which first appeared in a list, to
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How Improvisational Theater Ignites Creativity and Discovery in Student Writing
Figure 1. Nicole’s Letter Drafts, First and Final
Nicole’s First Letter Draft
Nicole’s Final Letter Draft
To have this very personal effect, I have compiled
a list of negative changes that may potentially
occur if the levels of pollution rise in the Long
Island Sound:
There are several reasons as to why we need to see a change in
the way we take care of our environment including economic,
safety and environmental issues. One of the[m] being that the
town will become less aesthetically pleasing. Looking at our
beaches will eventually become an eye sore to everyone in the
town and those who visit the town. I can see this as having a
negative impact on the local economy because when the amount
of visitors to the town decreases (as a result of the decrease in
aesthetic value), businesses and town parks and beaches will suffer. [Effects #1–­3] Fewer people will be willing to spend their
money on parking passes to go to beaches that are not on par
with the high standards that many hold these beaches to. Fewer
visitors will also frequent local restaurants, as they will be finding
other towns that have cleaner beaches with restaurants that are
arguably just as nice. [Effect #3] The area as a whole will eventually become less desirable and the value of each home, especially
those located on or near the beach will decrease. People will lose
a significant amount of money that they may have invested in to
their homes over the past years. [Effect #5]
• Not aesthetically pleasing [1]
• Decrease the amount of visitors to the area
(economic impact) [2]
• Local business will suffer [3]
• Fishing/clamming will decrease as a result of
poor water quality [4]
• Reducing the value of each individual home,
especially those located near or on the beach [5]
• Danger to walk on the beach barefoot and lastly
(most importantly) [6]
• Risk of animals becoming extinct in our location
(esp. horseshoe crab) [7]
• Damaging the environment in unimaginable
way [8]
help her town mayor better understand some of the
negative effects of local beach pollution. She transformed this list into three new body paragraphs that
combined ideas in convincing ways. Figure 1 compares sections of Nicole’s writing. I have numbered
and underlined parts of her letter to illustrate how
she reconfigured her major claims and examples.
In her final draft, Nicole established a connection between the declining aesthetic value of the
town and its beach, and the financial consequences
felt by local businesses and homeowners in the
community. She reasoned that these groups would
lose out to surrounding areas that offer cleaner
beaches and arguably better places to live. These
connections reflect aspects of using “Yes, and” as
an exercise and a mindset to stimulate processes of
discovering, adding, and building upon ideas. Reimagining an approach typically practiced in theater holds the potential of helping students produce
more nuanced and complex writing.
Getting in on the Action
At its core, improvisational acting is about inventing a collective response to a dramatic situation.
Improvisers create material by tapping into the
imagination of an entire group and recognizing
each member as a valued resource and collaborator.
Adapting principles and practices of improvisation
to our classrooms expands students’ perceptions of
46
prewriting while inviting them to experience the
collaborative nature of invention. It assists them
with developing the capacity to create, which formulaic and predetermined approaches stifle.
We need to involve students in sophisticated
and innovative methods of prewriting that do more
than check items off a list. We need to provide meaningful and purposeful contexts for brainstorming so
that students become invested in these processes
and recognize the value of prewriting for their own
writing. Using “Yes, and” demonstrates one way of
actively involving students in direct exploration of
ideas through collaborative discovery, inquiry, and
creativity. Students not only listen to and consider
divergent views and opinions; they enact various
perspectives by believing and affirming ideas that
align with differing viewpoints. Applying improv
as both an intellectual framework and a set of instructional practices to teaching writing reminds us
that some of our best ideas come from spontaneous
moments. It gives us, along with our students, a live
view of the drama of inventing.
Notes
1. I would like to thank Ken Lindblom for suggesting that students record their conversations using an iPad,
smartphone, laptop, or other device, so that they might
return to these conversations later to identify and review
material for writing.
2. I videotaped and transcribed this conversation as
part of an IRB-­approved research study of my classroom.
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Lauren Esposito
Works Cited
Crowley, Sharon, and Debra Hawhee. Ancient Rhetorics for
Contemporary Students. 4th ed. New York: Pearson,
2009. Print.
Dean, Deborah. What Works in Writing Instruction: Research
and Practices. Urbana: NCTE, 2010. Print.
Elbow, Peter. “The Believing Game or Methodological
Believing.” Journal for the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning 14 (2009): 1–­11. Print.
Halpern, Charna, Del Close, and Kim “Howard” Johnson.
Truth in Comedy: The Manual of Improvisation. Colorado Springs: Meriwether, 1994. Print.
Sawyer, R. Keith. Creating Conversations: Improvisation in
Everyday Discourse. Cresskill: Hampton, 2001. Print.
Steineke, Nancy. Assessment Live! 10 Real-­Time Ways for Kids
to Show What They Know—­and Meet the Standards.
Portsmouth: Heinemann, 2009. Print.
Talhelm, Melissa. “Second City Teacher Training: Applying
Improvisational Theater Techniques to the Classroom.” English Journal 104.5 (2015): 15–­20. Print.
Wilhelm, Jeffrey D. “You Gotta BE the Book”: Teaching
Engaged and Reflective Reading with Adolescents. 2nd ed.
New York: Teachers College, 2008. Print.
Lauren Esposito is an assistant professor of writing studies in the English Department at Marywood University. Her research
focuses on innovative writing pedagogies. She has been a member of NCTE since 2004 and served as the editorial associate
for English Journal from 2008 to 2013. She can be contacted at [email protected].
R E A DWR IT E T H IN K CO N N E C T IO N Lisa Storm Fink, RWT
The “Yes, and” statements can be recorded using the Circle Plot Diagram tool. The tool can be used as a prewriting graphic organizer for students writing original stories with a circular plot structure as well as a postreading
organizer used to explore the text structures in a book. By students inserting main examples of a story’s plot
directly onto the circular interactive, the concepts of structure and plot are reinforced each time the tool is used.
When used as a prewriting exercise, the diagram can be printed out and shared with peers and teacher for feedback and revision in this phase of the writing process. http://bit.ly/1IVBzxk
Reading Emily
We do not read to know,
but to be known—
the reader comprehended
by the poem.
As boomerangs flung
fly back home,
so is it with the poem
within her poems—
Yet slantwise,
backwards, misconstrued
with words that curve
like cosmic space—
enigmatic, epigrammatic—
which crooked, slantwise
never straight
circumambulate the soul,
the more they turn
the further they return,
the further strayed
the more they stay in place.
slip through the back gate
like a recluse,
who, though unseen,
sees all. We read the lines
she reads between.
—Richard Schiffman
© 2016 by Richard Schiffman
Richard Schiffman is an environmental journalist, poet, and author of two biographies. His poems have been published in
the Southern Poetry Review, the Alaska Quarterly, the New Ohio Review, the Christian Science Monitor, the New York
Times, and other publications. His forthcoming poetry collection What the Dust Doesn’t Know will be published by Salmon
Press. Richard can be reached at [email protected].
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