The first part of the article had me thinking "well DUH"... The basics of psychology tell us that we are shaped by our surroundings; what we do, who we do it with etc. So, when this author brought up the idea of extracurricular performances and writing influence each other (academic and non-academic) I completely agreed, but I was also waiting for something a little deeper and more promising.
I suppose this article expanded more on the view of non-academic writing by adding in more verbal areas of communication such as a play that could be considered a type of writing. But the idea of role-playing in writing classrooms which seemed to me like classes already available: speech, debate, small group communications, drama, and acting classes ring a bell?
So, as I read on I began to understand the foothold performance has on youth. Students seem to want to express themselves without being constricted by specific topics or strict guidelines. This leads me to believe performance is an inevitable part of the academic future. I am not sure at this moment if it will create a positive outcome for writing, but I do know it will change writing drastically. My only wish is that these performance centered writing classes be offered to higher level students due to the importance of academic writing in your beginning level courses.
College definitely has a wide-variety of classes that can relate back to writing. English professors may not to worry about teaching performance art--instead professors, departments, or the university could encourage more holistic learning. It's disappointing when I see a class that could be useful to me, whether it's theater or project management, and I find it's closed to a particular major. The real world, and the human brain, doesn't operate in the silos created by academia.
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