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Act 1, Scene 1:
Getting Started

Guide to Educator
resources

For the K-3 teacher
For the 4-8 teacher
Shakespeare and
the TEKS

Texts for
classroom use

A Guide To The Plays
"A Most Rare Vision"–
Student and educator
voices

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  1. O, for a Muse of fire!
  2. Suggested activities:
    A quick overview
  3. Activities for ensemble play
  1. Yes!
  2. Group Sculptures
  3. Mirrors
  4. Sculpture Gallery
  5. Presents
  6. Have You Seen My Kitty?
  7. Magic Hat
  8. Hotseat, or, The Press Conference
  1. “I’ll follow you!”: A choral speech
  2. Three Worlds
  3. Two-character exchanges
  4. “Now I am alone”: The soliloquy
  5. Group voice: Sharing a character
  6. Showdown: Oberon vs. Titania
  1. Planning the Project: What do you want your students to achieve?
  2. Planning the Project: Making room for Shakespeare
  3. Planning the Project: The Final Performance
  4. A sample sequence
  5. Laying the foundation, establishing some rituals
  6. Preparing for the journey: A checklist
  7. We shall not cease from exploration

“I have had a most rare vision.”

-- Nick Bottom, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Teaching is hard work, and the hours are long – you know that well. So to tackle something “extra” with K-8 kids like a Shakespeare project you have to be inspired by some sort of vision of what this process will bring to the students.

Something has drawn you to these pages. Perhaps you want to share your passion for Shakespeare with young people, or you’ve read Rafe Esquith’s book, or you’ve seen other teachers do a play with young students. But somehow you already have at least an inkling of a vision of what a Shakespeare project could be for your kids.

As mentioned in the previous section, you first must see how Shakespeare could fit into your busy schedule. Let’s assume you’ve given yourself the green light on that one.

So, the next questions are:

What do you want your students to learn? What do you want them to achieve? At the end of this process, what would you like them to be able to do? What do you want parents and your principal to see up there on that stage, or in class when students are working?

It’s important to be able to articulate this – for yourself, as you plan, and for the kids, their parents, and your administrators – as you head into such new territory.

In the section “Why Shakespeare? Why kids?” (see Index on left column) we look at some of what we see as the main benefits to the student from this a long-term Shakespeare performance project. Here is a quick restatement of those key points:
  1. Hands-on experience with rich, poetic English; both silent and oral reading, with a goal of fluent public speaking of the text
  2. Increased vocabulary through active, playful use of complex words
  3. Practice with such skills as summarization, character study, context clues
  4. Increased self-confidence in public presentation
  5. A focus on close listening and audience behavior
  6. Emphasis on teamwork, collaboration, building an ensemble
  7. A head start on a core element of the curriculum in grades 9-12
  8. A boost in self-confidence from mastering something “grown-up”
  9. A new sense of connection between “language” and “the arts”
  10. A new sense of one’s potential, through the joy of doing something extraordinary with a group of peers
These achievements are all possible in a yearlong project that gradually builds to a final performance.

If you choose instead to do a “unit,” with a concentrated focus for a period of weeks, you can do some wonderful things – but it’s hard to speed up the process of gradually layering a performance. So the experience obviously will be less deep.

The choice can be looked at this way: between exposure and ownership.

Exposing kids to Shakespeare is great. This is also usually more appropriate for students in grades K-3. Reading a story version of a play, working for a week on a scene, doing creative writing and drawing about the characters, having a guest speaker or performer – all of these can leave a vivid, lasting impression. Sometimes we will meet students who still remember the time someone came to their class long ago and talked about Shakespeare. A seed can be planted for later exploration. We definitely encourage this approach if it is the most your schedule, or the age of the kids, will allow.

Ownership is a deeper process, with deeper benefits. That’s no surprise – the more time we spend on any subject, the more it becomes part of a student’s life. But with Shakespeare, it seems especially true. The key difference is that students have a longer period of time in which the language can “steep” within them. The lines truly become theirs. And the entire scene or play does as well. There is a gradual accumulation of minutes and hours spent hearing the lines, hearing the teacher speak the lines, perhaps even watching clips of a film version of someone saying the lines.

By the end of a long-term project, everyone knows most of everyone else’s lines, and the characters are part of the life of the classroom. Often, the final performance of Shakespeare is a very special event and a symbolic culmination of the entire year’s experiences for the group and the teacher. Years later, as Rafe Esquith and other teachers have reported, students will return to visit and say that the Shakespeare play was the most memorable and life-changing experience of their 4th or 5th or 6th grade year. (Of course, Esquith’s students have also performed around the country and at the Globe Theater in London, so that helps – but maybe you can do that someday too!)

So, as you ponder the possibilities, give some time to that vision of your kids at the end of the process. Are they on a stage giving a tight, disciplined group performance of one 10-minute scene? Are they in the classroom presenting an evening of scenes from one play, or from different plays, in groups? Are they doing onstage at a local theater, doing small snippets of scenes, a collage, where everyone gets a moment? Are they in a high school auditorium performing a 1-hour version of a tragedy that incorporates student poetry, music, and artwork?

To return again to the opening lines of the Prologue in Henry V, once you find your “muse of fire” there is no limit to your efforts to reach “the brightest heaven of invention.”