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FROM THE PAGE TO THE STAGE: Teaching Shakespeare in the Classroom Teachers Activate Shakespeare Do you remember your first introduction to Shakespeare? Was it active, engaging, and lively? Did it challenge your thinking skills? Encourage your creativity? Did it make you love the Bard? The Kentucky Shakespeare Festival wants every student in Kentucky to answer those questions with a resounding YES, so for the past six years, we have offered a special summer institute for teachers, FROM THE PAGE TO THE STAGE: Teaching Shakespeare in the Classroom. Many teachers, while interested in Shakespeare, are frustrated and even intimidated by the teaching of his works. Because Shakespeare is meant to be seen and heard - not merely read, FROM THE PAGE TO THE STAGE is a performance-based approach that integrates history, social customs, literature, language arts, visual arts, and the performing arts. These hands-on experiences eliminate the boredom or confusion that may arise when students approach Shakespeare only through reading. Institute participants work with Master Teachers in lecture/demonstration and performance/workshops. Topics include: period manners, movement and dance, Shakespeare's language, using choral techniques, and staging scenes using the participants as actors. Participants will also attend performances of the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival's summer productions. Then, when the academic year begins, participants implement a Shakespeare study in their English, Language Arts, or Drama classrooms. Having selected a play, teachers guide their students in directing, costuming, and performing a scene. The project culminates in a Student Shakespearean Scene Festival held in the spring of each year. In this way, students meet Shakespeare in the most accessible way -- through performance. Kentucky teachers are particularly mindful of the expectations of KERA, and all teachers want to maximize their students' learning. FROM THE PAGE TO THE STAGE helps teachers develop the following performance-based skills in their students: making sense of what they read, see, and hear; speaking appropriately to an audience; communicating ideas visually and through movement; understanding, analyzing, and interpreting historical events; creating works of art, analyzing their own and others products and performances; appreciating art, music, and literature; solving problems and working collaboratively. Over the past six years, teachers have given the program rave reviews. "Working with other teachers helped me to bring new ideas into my classroom," said Seneca High School teacher, Kay Twaryonas, who participated in the first summer institute. While most participants have been from Kentucky and Indiana, some have come from as far away as Arizona and New Mexico. The first four institutes were held at Bellarmine College, and for the past two summers, the institute has been hosted by Sacred Heart Academy on the Ursuline Campus. Collectively, the teachers who have taken part have touched the lives of thousands of students by bringing Shakespeare to life in their classrooms. PAST MASTER TEACHERS INCLUDE:
For more information about the institute or about other teacher-training programs offered by the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival, contact Curt L. Tofteland, 583-8738. [ Back to Will On Wheels ] | |
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