“For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.”

The temperature is going up and up and up these days, proof that summer is here even though school is still in session. Students are restless to be outside (or at least not at their desks), and I have a feeling the teachers are, too! If you’re looking for some Shakespeare class activities to fit in between final exams and the last day of school, try some these three activities guaranteed to get students actively involved in Shakespeare’s language! Please also let us know if you have any ideas to share in the comments.

Students from Maury Elementary in Washington DC physicalize "Two households, both alike in dignity," during an SSO class

1. Physical Text:
Sometimes reading just isn’t enough, and students aren’t all ready to leap to their feet to “perform” text. This choral reading activity has everyone work together to create what could wind up being a great interpretive dance piece to a Shakespearean soliloquy

-Bring the text on a large posterboard to wherever this lesson takes place.
-As a group, agree on a way to give the punctuation in the text a physical motion.
-Go through the text word for word. As you point to a word or punctuation mark, ask all the students to speak the word aloud and come up with a physical motion for each of the words in the text. Encourage students to use their whole bodies. They are to repeat the same action when the words are repeated.

This activity can be done with the following soliloquies (or, really, any of your choosing!):

A Midsummer Night’s Dream  Act 5, Scene 1  Bottom, as Pyramus:
“O grim-look’d night! O night with hue so black!…”

The Tempest Act 5, Scene 1  Prospero:
“Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,”

Twelfth Night Act 2, Scene 2  Viola:
“I left no ring with her: what means this lady?”

Students die obscenely and courageously at the 2011 Secondary Schools Festival (photo by Duy Tran)

2. Death Lines
If there’s one thing students love – it’s pretending to die. At least that’s our experience!

- After briefly going over safe falling, give students Bottom’s line: “Thus die I, thus, thus, thus!”
-Have students individually pull an occupation, mood, or pop culture reference out of a hat/bowl/jar.
-Students must die emphatically saying Bottom’s line while impersonating their choice.

There may not be a real “lesson” in this, but it’s fun and it’s Shakespeare! You can also use death lines from other plays, such as:

Romeo and Juliet: ”Thus with a kiss, I die”
Hamlet: “O, yet defend me, friends; I am but hurt.”
Antony and Cleopatra: “Now my spirit is going; I can no more,”

For more ideas for Famous Death Lines, check out this lesson plan by Leslie Kelly!

Students from Capitol City PCS in Washington DC get into Shakespeare!

3.  Shakespeare’s O
O’s give us the emOtions behind a line, and are also fun to play with!

-Give examples of different kinds of emotional “O’s” – “O, a puppy!” “O, I’m sick.” “O, you surprised me!” “O, I knew that.”
-Give each student a line from Shakespeare that begins with “O,” such as “O, devil, devil!” (Othello).
- Have the students give an emotion to the O of the line, make the emotion really big and carry the sound out.
-Once the emotions are high, have them carry it through the line with all of the emotion.
-If a student wants to move around, let them!

Some great “O” lines can be found by searching “O” on http://shakespeare.yippy.com, but be warned you will get more than 2000 results if you don’t narrow it down by play!

Henry V: “O, for a muse of fire”
The Taming of the Shrew: “O, this learning what a thing it is!”
As You Like It: “O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful, and yet again, and after that out of all whooping!”

And don’t forget, you have something to look forward this summer, too! Consider registering for our Elementary Educators’ Conference in Washington, DC; or for one of these National Mini-Institutes hosted by the English Speaking Union of the United States!

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Teach Shakespeare – Before It’s Too Late!

~by Barbara Cobb

students from Brookland Elementary in Washington, DC learn Shakespearean Insults with Lady Mallory

When I was starting my work on Shakespeare in the schools, I asked a cognitive psychologist with whom I collaborate, “at what age do children have the greatest facility with different dialects, like Shakespeare’s early modern English?” Her response surprised me just a little: “around the age of 9,” she said, “and this facility declines fairly rapidly as they turn into adolescents and young adults.”

We are doing our students a disservice when we withhold Shakespeare and early modern English from them until our  students are in high school. Out here in western Kentucky, teachers, teacher education students, and university professors are working together to bring Shakespeare to kids in grades 3-12 – to keep Shakespeare in our students’ mouths and brains all through their formative years.

We have a group of students who have done two-week Shakespeare units in 3^rd, 4^th, and 6^th grades, and we are planning units for their 7^th and 8^th grade years as well. Our theory is that, when these students encounter Shakespeare as part of their high school core curriculum, they will be Shakespeare Beasts — and their teachers will be thrilled!

Barbara is an Associate Professor of English at Murray State University and Associate Chair and Education Coordinator for the Murray Shakespeare Festival. The Festival’s Shakespeare in the Schools outreach initiatives, combined with its week-long event each February, bring Shakespeare to over 1500 students grades 3-12 each year. Barbara earned a Ph.D. from Rutgers University, and is the author of “Playing With Poetry’s Rhythm: Taking the Intimidation out of Scansion,” English Journal 96.1 (2006), among other publications. 

Barbara is also one of the Folger’s presenters for the 2011 Elementary Education Conference – open to any teacher of elementary students. More information and registration is available in the link above.

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Folger Education in Florida

~by Amy Ulen

Educators explore Shakespeare on their feet at NCTE 2010

Teachers from around the country descended upon Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort in Orlando, Florida, last weekend to attend the National Council of Teachers of English annual convention.   In years past, the Folger Shakespeare Library conducted a one-day Shakespeare Set Free workshop on the Monday after the convention.  This year our goal was to share our performance-based teaching methods with more participants by breaking our workshop into five acts over the weekend.  As a result, we reached over 500 participants who will be able to incorporate the new techniques in their classrooms this week!

If you missed the convention, here is a brief overview.  Act I started with Susan Biondo-Hench and Kevin Costa engaging the participants in on-your-feet pre-reading strategies and close reading activities that will instantly engage students.  Their workshop ended with well over 100 people standing in a circle enacting lines from Romeo and Juliet!  Act II continued with Julia Perlowski, Erica Smith, and Amy Ulen presenting performance-based activities and the research that supports this style of teaching.  Act III expanded our notion of performance when Scott O’Neil, Chris Shamburg, and Rebecca Hranj demonstrated the use of Web 2.0 tools that assist students in a close reading of Shakespeare’s texts. 

On Saturday morning, Josh Cabat and Mike LoMonico continued showing participants how technology

Educators explore Shakespeare's language physically at a Folger Worskhop, NCTE 2010

enhances the study of Shakespeare; Act IV focused on using video and film in an active way to connect students to Shakespeare’s plays.  In Act V, Dana Huff summarized the entire Shakespeare Set Free workshop and shared ways to create meaningful and authentic assessments for your Shakespeare unit.  Carol Kelly gave tips on creating a Shakespeare Festival—one of the most authentic assessments of all!

The Shakespeare Set Free workshops were a huge success, but we didn’t want to end it there.  On Sunday morning, Peggy O’Brien, Rick Vanderwall, and Glenda Funk presented a Teaching Teachers to Teach Shakespeare workshop to 30 English methods teachers.  They began an important conversation, and Folger Education looks forward to continuing the discussion.

On behalf of all the presenters, I thank those participants who attended our workshops and encourage those of you who weren’t there to host a Shakespeare Set Free workshop in your own school/district.  We would love to share our performance-based Shakespeare methods with you.

Folger Education representatives at NCTE 2010

Amy Ulen teaches at Tumwater High School in Tumwater, WA.  She also runs the website Shakespeare High (www.shakespearehigh.com).  Amy attended the Teaching Shakespeare Institute in 1996.

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If Shakespeare Had a Mixer

~by Christopher Shamburg

In today’s digital environment some people are compelled to consume, create, and share remixed videos and music while others live happily ignoring remix altogether.  Whatever your interest, if you like Shakespeare, you’re a fan of remix.  Shakespeare was a master of it.  As teachers there are some creative, worthwhile, and easy-to-do methods to remix Shakespeare with students–methods that give them a meaningful experience with Shakespeare’s language and capture the spirit of today’s remix practices.  

Remixing is a popular activity that people do outside of schools.  Making music remixes of popular songs, video tributes, political satire, and parody are some ways that people use remix to creatively share their passions (see remix examples). In a broad but big way, digital remix correlates to how culture, art, and cognition get done–people synthesizing the material of others into original arrangements.

Copieth and Pasteth Macbeth

Remix was Shakespeare’s craft.   Consider that few of Shakespeare’s plays are original stories–Plutarch, Holinshed, and existing poems and dramas served as the source material for most of his works.  He often lifted stories and passages from news accounts, books, and folklore and incorporated them into his plays.  Shakespeare’s continuing appeal is because of the way he did it–through the skillful use of language and performance.

If Shakespeare Had A Mixer: Macbeth

Remix can characterize the history of Shakespearean production: the Nahum Tate King Lear with the happy ending;  the Luhrmann Romeo and Juliet that integrates Southern California hip hop culture; and foreign adaptations such as Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood which mixes Macbeth with feudal Japan.  Remix is authentic Shakespeare; the way that people make his work outside of schools. 

Here are three ideas for using remix with students and Shakespeare that can be done with easily available technology.  All focus on giving ownership of Shakespeare’s language to students: 

Text–students mix a passage of Shakespeare with a modern song or poem; see  Remixing Shakespeare Soliloquy Activity, or adapt Shakespeare to this activity on Remix Poetry.  

Audio–students create a unique audio creation with Shakespeare’s language, sound effects, ambient sounds, and music;   see Cinna the Audio Play , Cinna the Remix and Remixing Shakespeare at the Folger Website 

Video–students rearrange lines and scenes into a coming attraction, mix student performance with a commercial version, or edit a scene from lines said from different productions; see this growing playlist of Shakespeare video remix on YouTube, with a focus on student work.  

With the ease of remix today, technology has finally caught up with the Bard.

Christoper Shamburg is an Associate Professor of Educational Technology at New Jersey City University.  He is the author of Student-Powered Podcasting: Teaching for 21st Century Literacy (2009)  and National Educational Technology Standards: Units for the English Language Arts (2008).

Christopher will be presenting on this topic for the Folger with Micheael LoMonico, Rebecca Hranj, and Scott O’Niel, at NCTE on November 19th  C.43 (12:30 pm to 1:45 pm) “Shakespeare Set Free–Act 3: How Internet-based Web 2.0 Tools Can Get Your Students Closer to Shakespeare’s Texts”  Here’s a link to his presentation.

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A Gathering at the Globe

The Shakespeare Theater Association (of America) held its annual conference in London at Shakespeare’s Globe on January 7-10. [I put "of America" in parentheses because the organization has become international and its leaders are in the process of changing its name.] The Conference theme was “Who Owns Shakespeare?”

Bob Young, the Director of Education at the Folger and I traveled to London and found the program useful and varied. The Conference began on Friday with three different tours of  Shakespeare’s Globe led by Dominic Dromgoole, Artistic Director, Patrick Spottiswoode, Director of Education, and Peter McCurdy, the builder of the Globe. We traveled to the nearby site of the original Globe, a few blocks away and passed by the site of the Rose Theater.

Saturday’s highlight was a visit to Middle Temple Hall, built  between 1562 and 1573. In 1602 William Shakespeare’s acting troupe, the Chamberlain’s Men, were invited to perform there, which is the first recorded performance of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and it is believed that  Shakespeare was included in the cast. Tim Carroll, the director of the Globe’s 2002 memorial production of Twelfth Night at Middle Temple Hall spoke to our group.

Sunday’s Keynote Speaker was Adrian Noble, former artistic director and chief executive of the Royal Shakespeare Company. A lovely banquet on Sunday night at the Swan Brasserie was the perfect ending of a well-planned event.

Bob and I were part of a panel on “Cutting Shakespeare and Teacher Ownership” chaired by Kevin Costa of the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company along with Karen Libman from the Grand Valley Shakespeare Company. I was part of a panel called “The Internet Owns Shakespeare” chaired by Casey Gallagher, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival at DeSales University. The other panel members were Sarah Enloe, American Shakespeare Center and Ryan Nelson from Shakespeare’s Globe.

Jim Helsinger, the Artistic Director at the Orlando Shakespeare Festival was elected president at Sunday’s business meeting. He will host the 2012 conference and outgoing president, Philip Sneed will host the 2011 conference at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival in Boulder. 

A full listing of all 120 member festivals with links to each is on the STAA site. I welcome other attendees to add their comments and memories to this Blog.

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Folger Education at NCTE

The Folger Education team is excited about our participation at the NCTE Conference in Philadelphia from 11/19-24. We hope we get to meet as many of you as possible.

Here are the highlights:

• Our Booth will be in Aisle 700 at 730 and 732.  We will be showing off our new Teacher Toolkit and its contents which includes two DVDs, a 2GB USB flash drive with podcasts, videos, images from our collection, and lots of handouts and edited scenes. We will also be answering all of your questions about Institutes, Workshops, and the rest of our resources. Be sure to stop by.
• The World Premiere  of the Folger’s film of Macbeth Friday night at 8:00 p.m. in the Marriott Independence Ballroom, 3rd floor. The Macbeth DVD including its collection of Special Features will be available to purchase after the screening for $10. Checks please.
• “Teachers Set Free: Lessons Learned from Shakespeare Education at the Folger” (Workshop H.08) on Saturday morning from 11:00-12:15 features Bob Young, Julia Perlowski, and Rick Vanderwall.
• “Teaching Shakespeare to the Class of 2020″ (Workshop K.09) on Saurday afternoon from 4:15-5:30 features presentations on technology by Mike LoMonico, Josh Cabat, Cari Craighead, Chris Shamburg, and Christina Porter.
• “Bill’s Buddies,” our traveling  group of actors will perform at a Featured Sesion (N.04) on Sunday afternoon from 1:00-2:45.
• “Shakespeare Set Free: a Short Course from the Folger Library” is an all-day session on Monday from 9:00-3:30. It features, Bob Young, Carol Kelly, Sue Biondo-Hench, Chris Renino, and Tory Talbot. 

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