Isabella Walls Capstone

For my project, I wanted to see the positive effects of improv/theatre on people’s mental abilities like their confidence. Originally I planned to do this through an improv club with surveys to track improvement in the beginning, middle, and end. I made a survey for when people first came to the club to gauge where they were at before joining improv. Though with covid the club had to be virtual making it hard to get members compared to previous years I ran improv. I had the improv club this year two days a week for a few months and heavily advertised the club, but I was unable to get a solid group bigger than four people which made the club not really doable. With this in mind, I had to change to taking over a single class of drama. After this class I gave them a survey and though this wasn’t my ideal plan they did have drama class all year and I was still able to see the effects of drama on their confidence through the survey I gave them. link to drama class: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mY6vvcwOk1LM3nHPk6YYA_zixcGYkIZN/view?usp=sharing Annotated Bibliography: “Conversations with Torian” 13 Jan 2021, Zoom call, Philadelphia, PA This was a useful source because I got detailed walk-throughs on games to play. Healso gave me helpful advice for getting people to participate on zoom and how to make people feel people comfortable. I was also able to learn about what works and what does not when doing theatre online. A problem with this is I was just hearing his experience from the teaching side, so I do not know fully what the class looks like or what they are experiencing. Overall this source gave me a good amount of ideas to incorporate into my club and some places to head with it and will be very useful moving forward. “Mini course improv class” 3 Feb 2021, Zoom call, Philadelphia, PA This source will be very useful. It is an improv activity at our school already but right now it's only for the freshman. Watching virtual improv with sla kids can inform me how kids interact. It will also show me what works with a bigger group because they have a good idea of what they are doing. After the class, I can get in contact with them and have more people to talk to and bounce ideas off of and get tips from. This source will be very helpful because it combines an improv show with kids that could be showing up to my club. StageMilk Team. “Running an Improvisation Class.” StageMilk, StageMilk, 25 Oct. 2015, https://www.stagemilk.com/running-improv-class/. Accessed 29 Jan. 2021. This source is useful because it gives tips on how to run an improv class, which is essentially what I am doing. It gives multiple tips that should help the members if I follow them. The slight issues with this source is it was written for a class, not a club and it was made with expectations of being in person. The tips for it being a class can still be useful and the club can be a learning experience for them. The skills also seem easy enough to transfer application to a virtual setting. This source also seems to give more game ideas. Ward, Rob. “10 Of the Best Virtual Improvisation Games for Distance Learning.” PerformerStuff More Good Stuff, 4 May 2020, performerstuff.com/mgs/10-of-the-best-virtual-improvisation-games-for-distance-learning/. Accessed 29 Jan. 2021. This source has a lot of games and activities for virtual settings. It gives a lot of useful descriptions for each game and what it can help do for the people in it. I selected this source because I want to keep the club interesting and have a lot of options for games I can play which was cut down a lot in a virtual setting. This source gives new games or solutions for the virtual setting. This source won’t completely useful till we get enough people for each of the games. Otherwise, this source is extremely useful. “The Life Benefits You Get by Engaging in Improv Activities.” TheBarrowGroup, Eden Marketing, https://www.barrowgroup.org/29226-2/improv-activities. Accessed 29 Jan. 2021. This source is useful because it helps to build my prediction for my capstone. In my capstone project, my hypothesis is that improv can improve people’s confidence along with their overall mental health and this source backs up what I think my project will show. It’s nice to go in with an idea of an outcome that will support my results hopefully. I can also you this article to help advertise my club if these are things people should get from participating in it. This source does not seem to have too much on it though and could be better. judetrederwolff. “The Mental Health Benefits Of Improv: How Making Things Up Together Helps Us Deal With Reality.” Judetrederwolff, Medium, 19 Sept. 2018, judetrederwolff.medium.com/the-mental-health-benefits-of-improv-how-making-things-up-together-helps-us-deal-with-reality-99f13854db46. Accessed 29 Jan. 2021. This is another source that talks about the benefits of improv. This source is more useful because it goes more in-depth in the mental department. This source continues to support and build my hypothesis about how my club can help people. This source is better than the other and goes into more detail and benefits that will help build my hypothesis and what will be good about my capstone. This also gives more benefits that could be used to advertise for people to join. This source is hard to tell the reliability though and looks weird to look at. Dunigan, Jack. “How to Measure Confidence - The Practical Leader.” The Practical Leader, https://thepracticalleader.com/how-to-measure-confidence/. Accessed 29 Jan. 2021. A big part of my project is seeing how people improve in their confidence. I chose this source because it talks about how to observe and measure confidence. This source will be very useful because it gives me good tips of what I need to measure and what to look for when measuring it. This source can also help me know what questions to ask to have an idea. I also know what to take note of now while running to the club so I can have personal observations for how people are doing in their confidence levels. “NCT's First Ever Online Improv Show.” YouTube, 11 Apr. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL_-vyd_e54. Accessed 29 Jan. 2021. This source is useful because this would be a good showcase idea for my capstone if I get people interested. This is a virtual Improv show so this is a professional version of what I want to do so it would give me a good base knowledge for how to plan one. It would show me what one should like. I can notice what to do and not do. This one is on Zoom so I can see how they adjusted to the virtual setting and how they got the audience involved. Maybe for the show, we can have more boundaries for who talks when. Hitlin, Paul. “How to Host an Improv Show the Right Way | Comedic Pursuits.” Comedic Pursuits, 29 Nov. 2018, https://comedicpursuits.com/host-improv-show/. Accessed 29 Jan. 2021. This source talks about the actual planning and moderation behind running an improv show. This source is very useful if I plan to put on a showcase. It tells me what I need to do more directly. It also gives a lot of tips that would be useful to know for running a show that is open to the public. This source is also helpful for what to not do. It gives good tips on mistakes to avoid and ways to work around those mistakes. “(544) Off the Top - Improv Comedy Show - Ep. 1 - YouTube.” Youtube, ThewestsideComedy, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_awHnh_b6t4. Accessed 29 Jan. 2021. This source is useful because this would be a good showcase idea for my capstone if I get people interested. This is a virtual Improv show so this is a professional version of what I want to do so it would give me a good base knowledge for how to plan one. It would show me what one should like. I can notice what to do and not do. This source is less useful though because it was in person which I cannot do in a pandemic. So I can base a show from them as easily