Interactional Scene Acting

In Soc 43: Social Interaction, students design and act out interactional scenes to help them understand the concepts learned that week. Generally the students are divided into pairs or groups of three for these acting "games," which vary from week to week.

In one game they are told to act out the interaction between a TF and an undergrad. In another game they are told to do whatever they believe is legal but socially unacceptable in a classroom setting in order to highlight the characteristics of social norm. In still another game, the instructor shows them a video clip. (In this case, Key & Peele's President and Angry Translator.) Then the students act as "translators" of a social science that they themselves come up with. The point of this game is to reveal what underlies behaviors and speeches during social interactions and to highlight the notion of "front stage" and "back stage." The only prerequisite for these games is to have done the readings and attended lecture to become familiar with the week's main concepts.