Shakespeare for life: how dramatising Shakespeare in English boosts achievement articulacy, and aspiration.
Hughes, Annie
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First impressions are important, especially when introducing
21st-century students to 16thcentury playwrights. Teachers of
Shakespeare are asked to appeal to a multimedia generation that can
access entertainment from around the world in a matter of seconds. Is it
really possible to compete? Can Shakespeare really be differentiated for
students of every ability? Aren't there higher priorities for
students struggling with basic literacy?
Every year 600 schools use the Shakespeare Schools Festival (SSF)
as their starting point for teaching Shakespeare. This national,
educational, arts festival is founded on the belief that Shakespeare is
for everyone, and that the plays are most accessible when a practical
approach is taken. SSF teachers are required to direct half-hour
abridgements of Shakespeare plays which their students perform as part
of an annual autumn festival in professional theatres local to them.
If ever there was a time to cut back on superfluous elements of
arts education strategies surely the current climate would be the
perfect excuse? However with SSF happening at 80 venues across the UK
again this year, it's clear that teachers are delivering far more
than just getting students through exams, and that they endorse active
methods of teaching.
Improving literacy through drama
For students who struggle with basic reading and communication, it
might seem futile to teach Shakespeare in lessons that could be spent on
reading, comprehension and basic correspondence. However, teachers
regularly cite SSF as an aspirational project in which students improve
their academic records and gain confidence. Highbury Grove School in
London introduced SSF to their school five years ago and agreed that
their students made remarkable journeys through the project.
Performers are proud of their performances, and prouder still that
they tackled Shakespeare. This end goal seems to generate more effective
individual and peer-led learning along the way. One student reflected:
'The adrenalin you get on stage and the applause from everyone
makes you feel like you have achieved something and that you've
done something really good.'
SSF trains teachers to engage students with the text from a
dramatic perspective from the outset, encouraging students to unlock
meaning instinctively, with the help of the structural and contextual
clues in the text. A participant from Highbury Grove School explained
the process in this way: 'If you're just reading the play then
you're just reading words and it's really hard to understand
what they are feeling because of the language difference. But when
you're acting it you actually get to become the character and you
get to see why they are doing what they're doing'.
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All SSF performances take place during October and November,
however teachers commit to the project on behalf of their school from
January to March and the planning begins thereafter. Teachers request a
first and second choice play to perform at their closest participating
venue, and SSF schedules performances for every registered teacher so
that four different plays are performed at each venue, each evening.
SSF delivers a full day's training workshop to every Teacher
Director, which is devised in partnership with the National Theatre
specifically for this project. These workshops are designed to inspire
and support all teachers, regardless of their level of experience, and
to provide an approach and a toolkit for directing Shakespeare with
young people of mixed abilities. The workshop is also designed to
suggest shortcuts for teachers battling heavy teaching loads and having
to fit rehearsals into extra-curricular sessions. It is a demanding day
which allows teachers to enhance their understanding of
Shakespeare's plays and guides them towards developing their own
creative vision. In addition, the workshop provides practical techniques
for ensuring that students take ownership of their play. This involves
games and physical exercises which explore elements including the world
of the play, characterisation and status, and allows students to
discover different ways of speaking Shakespeare's lines. An example
of this might be to ask students to pause at the end of each line
initially, and upon second reading to pause when they encounter a full
stop. Most teachers leave this workshop confident enough to cast their
plays and begin rehearsals, armed with methods for addressing the
difficulties most commonly encountered when directing student
productions of Shakespeare. Workshops are divided to cater for primary
schools, special schools and secondary schools.
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In the Autumn term, students are invited to attend their
performance venue to meet another school performing on the same night,
and to participate in a half-day workshop devised in partnership with
the National Youth Theatre. For many students, this moment marks a
change in their focus, from taking part in a 'school play' to
preparing a piece of theatre for a professional stage. This workshop
builds on the work done by the Teacher Director and their students,
improving their confidence on stage, and paying attention to diction,
projection, movement and conveying the story through their performance.
Students value the opportunity to witness another school's
'work in progress', and to get to know another cast that will
be sharing the professional stage with them.
SSF teachers consistently report improvements to participants'
literacy following their Shakespeare performances, and the students also
recognise a change in their own attitudes: 'when you are actually
on the stage performing it you get the chance to understand it and,
thinking back to when I first saw another Shakespeare play and
didn't understand it, I was thinking "you know what ... I
should have just paid more attention and listened to the actual
storyline." I would highly recommend performing it.'
SSF has been endorsed by OCR, Edexcel and AQA exam boards as an
effective method of introducing Shakespeare. SSF's 'hands
on' approach works equally well for high-achieving GCSE candidates
who can delight in being directed by Shakespeare himself via his
mischievous use of iambic pentameter, line-breaks, and punctuation.
Innovative arts strategies
Shakespeare Schools Festival has consistently borne witness to
students rising to the expectations of their teachers and in its
eleventh year it has extended its reach to primary schools. South Rise
School, Greenwich, serves 650 children from 45 different nationalities.
Many of their parents are first generation immigrants and asylum
seekers. They were among the first primary participants and vetoed any
scepticism that Key stage 2 is too young to perform Shakespeare. Deputy
head teacher, Jenny Chapman, agreed to take part because she believes
that that engaging with Shakespeare is an important aspect of education.
'The students asked if doing Shakespeare meant we were becoming a
posh school, which shows the instant gravitas they and their parents
associate with Shakespeare and I'm pleased we can give them this
knowledge so early in their lives'.
South Rise students first encounter Shakespeare in year 4, when
they read the stories of some of the plays in modern English. Embarking
on performing Julius Caesar for SSF was another challenge entirely, with
students having no prior knowledge of the play or the language of their
characters. However Jenny had confidence in the students from the
outset: 'I believe that education is a self-fulfilling prophecy,
and it's all about your expectations. If you tell children they can
do something then they will prove you right.' When asked to explain
the essence of the conspiracy against Caesar, a 10-year-old student
explained: 'If you become too rude or too big for your boots people
wouldn't want to be your friend anymore because you're going
to try and act like the boss a little bit'.
Studying Shakespeare has become an anchor for a wealth of
historical contexts, and a primary school classroom in particular lends
itself to exploring the world of the play, the social and political
themes of Ancient Rome, and the world today - all of which are supported
by SSF's new Key Stage Two Resources.
Head teacher Soheila Matheson believes that performing Julius
Caesar has given students a valuable frame of reference through which
they can explore emotion, explaining,
'It's important to give children a way of articulating
their thoughts and feelings. We have children as young as five or six
who lash out physically because they are unable to do this. By helping
them to identify and talk about their moods and reactions they become
much calmer and less aggressive.'
South Rise has registered for SSF again this year and will be
aiming to involve more students in the coming production at Greenwich
Theatre in SSF 2011.
Annie Hughes
Shakespeare Schools Festival Coordinator www.ssf.uk.com
