I am a firm believer in the idea of “selling” oneself socially, and have done this primarily through my experiences in theater. I used to do it in High school, and its familiarity allowed me to progress at Wesleyan’s social scene, taking two different theater courses. However, it was through the class titled “Rap, Theater, and Social Justice” that I began to truly open myself.
Rap, Theater, and Social Justice was a three-hour class with only one other student. Because of the small numbers and length of the class, I was required to step out of my comfort zone and participate every day. I had no excuse to say the class had too many students, so my anxiety would not allow me to speak.
Each week, we had people who were incarcerated come speak to us and share their experiences. rearrange their words and recite them as verbatim pieces. The individuals speaking were great because they always had stories to tell about their lives and their battles with the U.S justice system, but it was up to my other classmates to come up with creative questions, good follow-up questions, and maximize the amount of information that they were giving to us. In one class, my classmate was sick, and I had to lead the conversation by myself for an extended period of time. I am pretty sure that was the most I had spoken in class in years. Although I am talkative by nature, it never translated into my academic or social endeavors, as I present myself as a shy, closed-off individual. However, if you were to ask my close friends and family, they would say I’m known as the parrot because I don’t stop talking.
At the end of the course, I had a final performance, where I presented one of the visitors’ stories. needed to be projective, evocative, and interpret the emotions of the visitor to my audience.
This class forced me to speak more than I wanted to or ever intended to in any of my classes, but because of this, it allowed me to be more confident in speaking and projecting my voice in my other classes and different social spaces.
