“I must begin with rudiments of art…

To teach you gamut in a briefer sort,”
The Taming of the Shrew 3.1

students from Inspired Teaching PCS act out Shakespearean Insults

Recently, I was embroiled in a discussion of whether or not younger students could “handle” Shakespeare’s work. I, of course, insist that elementary school students can and will “get” Shakespeare. Another member in the discussion said that young students aren’t ready to deal with the entirety of any single play, and if that is the case then they’re not ready for any of it.

That is exactly the kind of thinking that we educators need to free ourselves from. When we’re teaching “Shakespeare” we don’t have to teach an entire play. “Getting” Shakespeare doesn’t mean you can recite whole passages by age 10. It means that you understood a line of text, learned a new word, engaged in dialogue between two characters. It starts with the little things. If you end with a classroom performance, the most you’ll definitely work on is 30 minutes of a 4 hour play. The rest is icing on the Shakespeare cake.

You wouldn’t hand  a student a violin and ask him to start playing without having first taught music notes. You wouldn’t ask a student to do addition if they hadn’t yet learned to count.  And you wouldn’t give a student a Shakespeare play and tell him to read without starting to play in class with unique words, with the rhythm of iambic pentameter, or with the plot of the play they’re about to work with.

Everything starts small. Learning Shakespeare does, too. For any level class – you never have to feel obligated to teach an entire play. This point has been echoed by both Scott O’Neill, one of our former Teaching Shakespeare Institute participants, and Andrea Jackson, Director of Education for the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario. Links are to their Teacher to Teacher videos on our YouTube page.

What do you think? Where did you start with Shakespeare?

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Experience, O, thou disprovest report! (Part 1)

Happy holiday break! I hope you’re enjoying your week off from school (if you have one)! This week I’ll be sharing two activity ideas from Carol Ann Lloyd Stanger on helping students experience Shakespeare to overcome their expectations of the language and text. Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments, and let us know how your first semester went, or what your plans are for the coming one!

~by Carol Ann Lloyd-Stanger

We are sometimes asked for help from teachers whose students are having trouble with not only the language, but the plot of a play. For example, I was recently asked by a young friend’s teacher if I could come and talk to her class about Othello, which they are currently studying.

The questions I ask myself when preparing for something like this is: How can I help students understand language they don’t expect to understand and follow a plot they expect is too hard to follow? How do I help them overcome their expectations?

The Folger’s approach is to give the students activities that help them experience Shakespeare, to help his world come to life off of the page.

Sometimes, especially if the students are fairly new to Shakespeare, I’ll begin with having the kids act out theatre in Shakespeare’s time with a simple role-playing exercise shared with us by another Docent earlier this year. A few students will be “groundlings” with permission to behave badly: shout out during the performance, eat, drink, and generally make a scene. A couple of students will sit on the “stage area” as the wealthiest playgoers did. Their goal is not to see the play, but to be seen, so they are encouraged to call attention to themselves. A few more students are merchants, who must sell all their wares if they want to make a living and feed their families. A couple will take the role of “cut purse” and move stealthily about the crowd, stealing whatever they can without getting caught. Now I ask some players to be ready to take the stage in a 3,000 seat outdoor theatre, recognizing they have no microphones and if the groundlings are not impressed they are likely to pelt the players with rotten fruit. At this point I bring in a student to play Shakespeare. What does he need to do to get and keep the attention of this crazy crowd?

Having the students experience this for a few minutes, with chaos and laughter and movement, teaches them infinitely more than my standing in front of them and telling them about Shakespeare’s theatre and time. They recognize that Shakespeare must have done something pretty remarkable to have had so much success getting that crowd to hear the play. The play must, somehow, be more interesting than it seems sitting there on the page.

This is, of course, the whole point. The play isn’t sitting on a page, it’s alive and active. On Thursday, I’ll be sharing an example of a scene from Othello which students can use to play with the language Shakespeare provided.

Carol Ann Lloyd Stanger is the Docent Liason for Folger Education, and a published writer for Calliope magazine.

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Shakespeare for Youngsters

Students perform a scene from MACBETH during the 2011 Children's Festival

Some recent posts on this blog have noted that introducing Shakespeare’s plays to young students can be a very successful experience for the students and their teachers.  In addition to the Folger’s program for students in grades 3-6, Shakespeare Steps Out (SSO), the RSC has been creating shorter versions of the plays for youngsters.  Last year, for example, the RSC presented 70-minute versions of The Comedy of Errors and Hamlet.  The results were interesting.  Rather than finding the comedy to be more successful with students, the tragedy was the play students connected with because they were able to relate to the family issues within the play.  Now, the RSC is planning to film and make available for free to students in NYC a 70-minute version of King Lear.  Last year’s efforts were not filmed.  If students respond to family issues in a tragedy more than they do to a comedy, what other Shakespeare plays ought to be presented to students? Why? What’s the family-related issue(s) in the play?

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With all my heart, good youth.” (As You Like It, III.2)

~by Carol Ann Lloyd Stanger

I was lucky enough to greet a group of students participating in the Shakespeare Steps Out program this morning. Two schools joined us at Folger Shakespeare Library for a tour of the building, a discussion of Shakespeare’s times, and a hands-on stage combat workshop. Bringing these children into the library and getting them directly involved with Shakespeare is one of the things Folger does best.

students from Miner Elementary participate in a Stage Combat Workshop during the Shakespeare Steps Out program.

Like many adults, I was introduced to Shakespeare in the classroom. Most of my teachers had us read page after page, trying to make sense of a work of art that was created to be experienced, seen on the stage, and acted out—not read. The words of Shakespeare are literally life-changing, but those words need to jump around, tumble out of the mouths of children and adults, be flung at each other—in other words (no pun intended) to be experienced.

The groups today experienced Shakespeare in a way that few adults are willing to experience Shakespeare. Boys and girls allowed us to dress them in costumes that are representative of what wealthy folks would have worn in Shakespeare’s time. They willingly participated in a discussion of how they know the portrait hanging in the Founders’ Room must be Queen Elizabeth based on the clues they could see (a face they have seen in other portraits, her jeweled gown, the richness of the fabric on her dress). They spotted characters from plays they had studied (yes, these fourth graders were familiar with several plays) in the stained glass windows. In other words, they experienced the time.

students take a tour of the Folger

As we toured the building, we took advantage of the gorgeous weather to stroll along the front of Folger to experience the marvelous bas reliefs sculpted by John Gregory. They eagerly spotted the knives in Julius Caesar and mentioned how much they had enjoyed the stabbing scene when they had attended the play. They were thrilled to see the depiction of Bottom with the ass’s head, as they had discussed the story of that play just that morning. We worked through the reliefs, pointing out images and what they meant in the world of the play. The kids took turns reading the play’s title and acting out the scene on their own. Again, they were experiencing the work.

At the end of the morning, the kids very politely thanked me for the time we had spent together. But I think I am the one who should be grateful—grateful for a generation of children who are able to be enchanted by the works of Shakespeare, led by the diligent effort of teachers going far beyond the basics to bring the world of Shakespeare to these young minds. So I thank you—“with all my heart, good youth.”

Carol Ann Lloyd Stanger is the Docent Liason for Folger Education, and a published writer for Calliope magazine.

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Bless thee! Thou art Translated!

students perform MACBETH at the 2010 Secondary School Festival

They’re everywhere: No Fear Shakespeare, Simply Shakespeare, Translated Shakespeare. There are teachers who truly believe that their students can’t understand Shakespeare’s 400 year-old words, and turn to updated adaptations which give students the gist of the story, but none of the original poetry.

I used to be ok with it. I thought that as long as a side-by-side translation still printed the original text, students were still going to read and see and maybe even learn Shakespeare’s words. Then I flipped through one and discovered all of the poetry, all of the power, all of the original intent of the words gone. One of the awesome things about Shakespeare’s deliberate word choices is that certain words can mean so many things.

“To be thus is nothing, but to be safely thus”
“Being King is worthless to me,unless I can feel safe and secure as King”
“To be king is nothing, unless I am safely king”

Part of the fun, at least for me, is in interpreting the many ways Shakespeare could have meant the word nothing. Not to mention enjoying the poetry of the repetition of to be… thus and feel that flow within the words. When you translate Shakespeare’s word choices into a definitive interpretation, you are saying that that is the only meaning for that line, and cutting off any discussion about what it could mean to individuals.

This comes up today because of a recent article in which a teacher in NY uses his own updated adaptations of Shakespeare’s text to teach his special education students. He asks them which version they prefer, his own or Shakespeare’s, and they all say his own.

It is my opinion, and I want to stress that it is my own – and Folger Education staff will chime in with their own, that if you offer students an “easier” option, you are telling them that they are not going to understand Shakespeare. You are putting that barrier there and telling them that Shakespeare is a distant and unreadable icon of an outdated language, and that it is no longer useful to study his original texts.

I am the biggest advocate of adaptation in this office – novels, movies, plays and musicals, modern-dress, silent - anything that takes inspiration from Shakespeare I want to know about and explore. But to teach an adaptation as if it were Shakespeare is not how adaptation should be used. It should be used to explore the ideas presented in the originals and discuss them in fresh ways – not to replace the originals in the classroom.

We have seen ESL/ELL students, elementary students, special education students, students of all ages and disciplines perform, understand, and enjoy  Shakespeare’s original words on our very own stage for decades. Where does this idea come from that the language cannot be understood or taught? Please share your opinions in the comments.

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Lend me your ears!

This afternoon, Lucretia asked me if I knew of any audiobooks of Shakespeare’s plays for kids. One of this year’s Shakespeare Steps Out teachers had asked for recommendations for the listening stations for students in her class.

When I was a kid (and I think it’s been well-established that young Caitlin had more than a little Shakespeare in her life) I had a favorite audio book on cassette tape of A Midsummer Night’s Dream which went with an abridged graphic novel of the play. The internet can be magical, and that book (and audio recording) and I have been reunited. However, it is with great disappointment that I find that none of the original text is used in this series. Yes, there are a dozen plays in this series of Illustrated Classics, but they use “modernized” language and occasionally bungle up the story (click on the sample of Hamlet if you don’t believe me!).

So at the moment, I have failed my colleague and the SSO teacher. I would imagine that there could be some abridged Shakespeare in audio out there somewhere, and I would hope (because I am biased) that it would come from the Shakespeare: The Animated Tales texts, as those are wonderful abridgements with true text.

If you’re up for the full play on audio, you can’t beat the Arkangel’s fully dramatized recordings. But what if you want only 30 minutes for kids? Where do you turn?

Do you have any suggestions? Tell us in the comments!

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A Storm of Words

The weather on the east coast has been particularly nasty this week. The wind blows, the lightning cracks, and the rain spit-spouts onto every surface. Soggy socks and gray skies can lead to bored students, though, but with a little help from Bill’s Buddies, I think I’ve found a way to make the weather more fun!

The 2009 Bill’s Buddies show was all about how Shakespeare used the power of his words to create scenery, setting, emotions, and even special effects! THIS HANDOUT is one of my favorite scenes of theirs, in which they introduce the power of dynamic words by creating a raging storm using only words! I’ve set it so you might share it with your class as an activity with 4 helpful volunteers and the whole class’s involvement!

In the Buds’ own words: “Shakespeare could write plays that, 400 years later, are still wildly popular, even without the use of special effects.  It is our imaginations that are the final piece to the puzzle. Shakespeare knew that stories could only truly come alive when imagined by the audience… and that imagination could always dream a bigger storm and a more beautiful moon and scarier woods and a better story than any special effect.”

What is your favorite “Special Effect” in Shakespeare’s plays? How would you share that with your class? Share in the comments, please!

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The Immeasurable Rewards of Directing Shakespeare in a Grade School

~by Keith Jones

David as Borachio in Much Ado About Nothing at RiverTree School, 2011

Although I have taught Shakespeare on the college level for many years, I had never considered directing a play until RiverTree School asked me to direct their end-of-year Shakespeare play.

I quickly learned that two of the most essential elements to possess in directing a Shakespeare play for grade school children are passion and patience.

Isaac as Conrade in Much Ado About Nothing at RiverTree School, 2011

Passion for Shakespeare is contagious.  If the children—and their teachers and parents—see the passion you have, they will not only be able but they will be eager to share that passion with you.  The popular impression that kids are reluctant to engage with Shakespeare is entirely false.  With the invaluable help of their teachers, these kids were as far from “creeping like snail unwillingly to school” as can be imagined!

Patience is essential because the process can be lengthy.  It takes time for the play to come together.  The children need time to study the story, to learn their lines and their blocking, and to learn to project their voices without shouting.  While they are learning those, they are also starting to understand more about the characters they are enacting and the way those characters relate to the others on stage.  But none of that comes in a day.

Margaret as Leonato in Much Ado About Nothing at RiverTree School, 2011

Answering students’ questions was a particularly delightful part of the process.  They had a lot of them, and even though the questions tended to start at a basic “What does this character mean in this speech?” level, they soon developed into something much more:  “Why is this character so mean in this speech?”

The kids and I had an enormously joyful time engaging with the material.  Directing grade school children in a Shakespeare play was unquestionably one of the most profound ways of engaging with Shakespeare that I have ever experienced.

Keith is a Professor in the Department of English at Northwestern College, and the author of Bardfilm: The  Shakespeare and Film Microblog. You can see Keith featured in this month’s Teacher to Teacher segment on our monthly BardNotes e-newsletter, as well as Margaret in our first ever Student to Student video, below.

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The Gift of Shakespeare

~by Holly Rodgers

Exposing students to great literature is one of the greatest gifts a teacher can give to a student.  Alice Owens, my beloved teacher, who also exposed me to great writers of feminist prose, presented me with a gift that would greatly influence my life and lifetime reading habits.  I was 13 and reading Romeo and Juliet for the first time in my 8^th grade honors English class and it was love at first word.

What was this astounding new language that infected my adolescent soul with vim and vigor at each new verbal infusion?  I was completely smitten with Shakespeare, not to mention Leonard Whiting as Romeo in Zefferelli’s adaptation.  Many plays and many years later, I continued to reserve Shakespeare for my personal enjoyment, until I decided to share him with my elementary English language learners (ELLs).  While many of my colleagues thought I was insane to attempt Shakespeare with youngsters who didn’t speak English fluently, I experienced only positive results.  My students were intrigued and enthusiastic for this enchanting new world of stories, words, and characters.  By sharing my love of Shakespeare, instilled in me by my teacher, I was sharing his literary legacy with a whole new generation and population.

A truly great gift is one that continues to benefit both the benefactor and the recipient long after it has been presented.  My classroom decided to pay Shakespeare forward by performing his work for others in our school and community and ultimately the Folger stage.  In preparing for the Folger Children’s Shakespeare Festival, my students and I were permanently altered.  As a teacher, I found myself never satiated unless I was teaching more Shakespeare.  The high of watching their discovery and interpretation of his words was addictive.  My students began making connections to learning and the world around them in a way they had never done before.   Their vocabulary, reading comprehension, and English proficiency improved by leaps and bounds, but the benefits were not limited to the academic sphere.  My cast of players, from grades 3-6 spanning five continents, learned valuable teamwork skills and found a renewed sense of self-esteem.  My ELL students frequently feel inferior to their peers academically, socially, and in socioeconomic status.  By distinguishing themselves as young Shakespearians, they felt more confident as people and as active participants in their school and community.  Exposing your students to Shakespeare may cost you instructional or rehearsal time in class, but the value is absolutely priceless.

How can you share the gift of Shakespeare in your school or community?

Holly Rodgers is an English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) teacher at White Oaks Elementary School in Fairfax County, Virginia. See more of Holly during our upcoming Elementary Education Webinar course featured in this month’s BardNotes e-newsletter (www.folger.edu/enews).

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How Shakespeare Changed My Life

Director Melinda Hall has been working on a documentary on the subject of How Shakespeare Changed My Life. The promo clip featuring F. Murray Abraham, Sir Ben Kingsley, Stacy Keach, Michael Kahn and other noted Shakespeareans is currently circulating on the web. The most inspirational segment for me was Earle Hyman (whom I  remember as Bill Cosby’s dad on the Cosby Show) telling of how he grew up in North Carolina without a library that was open to African Americans- until one day a community center opened and when he finally had access to books, he asked for the largest one in the library. Behold he was given The Complete Works of Shakespeare and it changed his life.

I was introduced to Othello in my high school drama class, where we then performed at the Folger Secondary Festival. An absolutely life changing experience for me, along with my current husband (then boyfriend) giving me my own copy of the Complete Works the year he attended the festival before me. Both experiences have forever changed the course of my life and fueled my love affair with words. It has been a personal triumph to be able to offer the students we work with the opportunity to have life altering experiences through exposure to Shakespeare.

When asked to describe how he felt about learning Shakespeare, one of the 3rd grade DCPS students in our elementary program said, “I learned  that  you can make a difference in your life. …Now I am addicted to Shakespeare. And you feel like you can do anything and you will want to do it more.”

How has Shakespeare changed your life – and the lives of your students?

 

How Shakespeare Changed My Life, 5 minute clip from Melinda Hall on Vimeo.

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