Another article I have read recently that really got my attention is Teaching Shakespeare as Drama by Ken Watson. (Thanks Ken!) This article made me so excited about teaching Shakespeare that I emailed all the schools in my area and asked whether any of them were doing Shakespeare – lucky for me one of them was! I’m now helping out and trying out some of Ken’s ‘magic’.
Ken believes the answer to (the problem of how to teach Shakespeare) lies in making the classroom a workshop where we try to understand meaning through action – very clever and I totally agree.
- Firstly, students need to get used to the language! Children expect not to understand it so you need to break this fear now. So begin with language activities that are fun. Like …choral speaking, Shakespearean insults (kids love ‘em), say a speech as a group etc.
- Providing a context – give the students some historical background so they understand the era in which the play was performed.
- Introducing the play – Ken recommends NOT to read, tell the story or show a movie beforehand because all the students lose the motivation of what is happening next. Instead, use a problem solving approach where students have to guess or act out what they believe happens next. The Issues approach is where students explore some of the issues of the play in modern settings with group improvisations.
- Ken also discusses other ways to access Shakespeare with a classroom: Play building Shakespeare where students become co-creators of the play script.
- It is important to develop the theatrical imagination of the students.
- Guess the tone – give pairs a line or sense of unit and ask them to say it different ways, then perform to class. The class is asked to guess the tone.
- opening scenes – several plays open in the middle of conversation – students can be asked to devise actions to convey what was happening beforehand.
- blocking – prepare blocking plans
- bystanders – prepare additional scenes in which bystanders comment on what they just witnessed.
- Freeze frames – depict a moment of the text in a silent tableaux.
- Alter Ego – after each character has spoken his lines, his/her alter ego says what the character is really thinking. Best only used in a speech between two people, groups of four students.
- prompt copy – prepare a script that includes all the instructions the producer wishes to convey to the actors.
- Rehearse and act key scenes
- costume and set design
At the end of the essay Ken also discusses writing activities which I think are great for reflection at the end of a Shakespeare session.