The Art of teaching Shakespeare: Start with the basics

Mention Shakespeare in a classroom and get ready for students to groan or tell you how much they hate the Bard and how he is completely irrelevant. It is difficult for teachers to engage students in something that is not only daunting for students but can be daunting for the teacher as well. Today's blog post is less a blog and more of a collaborative sharing of resources. I pride myself on the fact that I can get any child to love Shakespeare through passion and my extensive knowledge. I have attached to this blog a lesson I used with a high ability year 8 class. It is a very basic introduction to Shakespeare but one that the kids thoroughly enjoyed. Let me know what you think. Thanks to the RSC, Elliot Shrimplton and Patsy Rotenburg for aiding in my quest to get young people to appreciate the Bard.

Actors understand Iambic Pentameter as the heart beat of a character. Each line should signify 10 heart beats. But sometimes this is not the case, like in this monologue. The second line has 11 beats. That is because there is an added beat in the word Juliet. What actors know is that in that line Romeo's heart has skipped a beat at the mention of Juliet. It tells us how he feels for Juliet and it tells the actor how fast his own heart beat must be going to match Romeo's.

Puppetry

This week I plan to highlight something that I enjoy teaching and something that I believe has huge benefits for children...Puppetry.

I first came across puppetry when undertaking some summer study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Under the guidance of the incredible Director of Puppetry for Warhorse, I learnt the importance of bringing the puppet to life in order to suspend reality.

In order to suspend reality we must first make the puppet. Below is a video that I have created with a company called Second Circle Media.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9-OGuD-Vo8


Once the puppet is created students should get into groups of four. In these groups each person is assigned a role.

Puppeteer 1: Controls the neck of the puppet, the right hand and the sound of breath
Puppeteer 2: Controls the hips of the puppet, the left hand and the physicalisation of breathing
Puppeteer 3: Controls the legs of the puppet
Puppeteer 4: The actor who works opposite

The puppeteers must work together in order to suspend reality. They do this by ensuring all eyes are on the puppet. By having every eye on the puppet, the actors ensure that the audience eye line is constantly directed to the puppet.

Puppeteer 1 is the lead puppeteer. They are in control of the breath. Students should be able to choreograph movements to the timing of breath.



Activity: Once the puppet is created and I have explained the role of each Puppeteer, I encourage students to watch and mimic human action. Really paying attention to how each muscle move. This level of detail ensures that students can recreate human physicality as much as possible. It is usually at this point I show them clips on youtube of humans doing everyday things, like kicking a ball, we analyse these in detail.

 I usually get each student group to created a short scene in which the puppet must complete a simple, everyday activity. This can be swinging a baseball bat, walking or moving to sit in a chair. Something simple like in the clips they have seen. I allow about 15 minutes for students to explore this.

I then get the students to present the simple action to the rest of the class who tell the performance things the liked about the performance and things they feel could be even better if.....

Once this is complete I then ask students to now go back and try and improve their micro scene even further.