Wednesday, April 17, 2019 | By Eric Cooper | 446 views
One of the highlights of the year is the performance-based assessment we do in both seventh and eighth grade classes at the close of our Shakespeare Unit. Using the Reader's Theater approach, students work in self-selected groups (acting companies) to interpret and reimagine a scene from a Shakespeare play.
Again this year, I believe the consensus in my class is that Shakespeare is NOT boring! After completing detailed scripts which include elaborate staging, rubrics, blocking, work assignments, and costume notes, students begin to perform the scene of their choice for the class, utilizing a specific theme and an original interpretation.
Though they must stay true to Shakespeare's words, they are allowed to inject a healthy dose of humor and creativity into these skits as you can tell from this year's lineup from "A Midsummer Night's Dream": one group's interpretation can best be described as a country and western saloon scene, one group reinterpreted Shakespeare through the lens of an old Saturday Night Live skit called, "Hans and Franz," one group visualized their scene occurring amongst a group of computer geeks and hackers, and our girls acted their scene out as strangely interesting and highly entertaining professional wrestlers wearing mostly bags.
Allowing students to study this play from within the space of performance moves the work beyond a drab reading of the skit into the action itself. The result is a profound sense that Shakespeare is meant to be acted and that the profundity and humor of his words are enhanced by participation and performance.
