First Reflection

As my first class of Teaching the Language of Drama begins, we are been asked by our lecturer to write the types of point of view on a piece of paper. Even it looks easy and simple actually it is quite difficult for me as there are many types of point of view to look out. In fact, point of view is a perspective from which a story is been told. The storyteller may be a character in the story (first-person narrator) or someone who does not figure in the action (third-person narrator), in which case he or she may know the actions and internal doings of everyone in the story (omniscient narrator) or some part of these (limited omniscient narrator). Rarely, there may be a second-person narrator, who uses “you” and the imperative mood throughout the story. The narrator may be an observer or a participant. If he or she is untrustworthy (stupid or bad, for instance), one has an unreliable narrator; narrators who are unreliable because they do not understand what they are reporting (children, for instance) are called naïve narrators. If the perspective on the events is the same, as one would get by simply watching the action unfold on stage, the point of view is dramatic or objective. After we finish the first exercise, then our lecturer has given us another exercise, which is also has related with the element of point of view. For that exercise, we are been given many kinds of texts and then we are required to identify the point of view for every text by providing appropriate explanation in order to support our answers. Actually, I am very confused while I am answering all those questions, as I do not know what types of point of view are suitable for every text. It is due to I am still not empowering the topic, which lead me to the confusion. Nevertheless, I think there are many benefits by answering those questions. First and foremost, it trains me to be more familiar with the various kind of point of view. Secondly, by doing those questions, I just realized that actually, for one text it could content more than one point of view. This is because before this I assume that one text should have one kind of point of view only but actually, it is wrong. As a result, my prior knowledge about the element of point of view becomes higher than previously. Moreover, point of view is one of the most important elements in literature since without it the readers cannot view the storyline of the drama from different perspective. All in all, I like my first class of Teaching the Language of Drama since it activates my schemata about the point of view in the literally works that I have learnt in my previous class. Therefore, it is easier for me when I am going to learn about drama in the next class as my background knowledge about the point of view becomes wide.