Practicum — Performing the Exaggeration

SLOP2950 · Week 11

A convincing, undetectable violation teaches you nothing about the norm.

What changes this week

  • every prior week: you studied a violation someone else committed
  • this week: you commit one yourself — deliberately, visibly, exaggerated well past the point of plausible accident

What “under supervision” changes

  • the “public” is your own cohort, not a stranger
  • the cohort has consented to be the audience for this exercise
  • the stakes are a mark and a debrief, not a stranger’s afternoon

Wrong vs. right

Wrong: a Practicum performance so convincing, or so quietly targeted at someone outside the consenting cohort, that nobody registers it as a performance at all.

Right: a performance exaggerated well past plausible accident, aimed only at the consenting cohort in the room — unmistakably a demonstration, not a real violation.

Discussion

Why does this week ask for more obviousness than a real violation would ever have, rather than less?

References

  • Osei, E. (2018). Exaggeration as Method: Teaching Norms by Performing Their Violation. Journal of Applied Incivility Studies, 6(3).
  • Vance, P. (2026). Consent, Supervision, and the Limits of the Classroom Drop-in Session. Behavioural Urbanism Quarterly, 12(1).
  • Reeve, L. (2020). What the Room’s Reaction Teaches That the Act Itself Doesn’t. Proceedings of the Symposium on Applied Pedagogy.