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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. Prologue
  2. Why we're here
  3. About Shakespeare at Winedale Outreach
  4. How to use this Teacher's Section
  5. An imagined inservice
  6. Beginning your own journey
Welcome back from the Winedale Theater Barn! We hope you enjoyed your workshop there. Thanks for taking the time to come out with us…

We took you on this imaginary voyage because the Barn is the place where this unique educational program began, and the place to which it always returns.

We try to bring each Winedale Outreach participating class out to the Barn at least once, either to perform or to do a daylong workshop. The kids always have a great time out there.

Now, we know it may take a while to get you to Winedale, and maybe even a bit longer to get your students up on that wooden stage. We know how many obstacles lie in your path. But if this is something you want to try, we are ready to do whatever it takes to help you.

Getting you and your class to the Barn is still our goal, our mission – to share this special space, and this special way of working and learning and growing together. We’ve seen it change the lives of all sorts of kids, from fourth graders to graduate students, and we want your students to have that same opportunity.

In the meantime, wherever you may be reading this, there is plenty we can do together to bring this educational experience into your classroom.

Things growing are not ripe until their season…”

We can start small.

Shakespeare at Winedale began with a two-week summer session, flyers handed out to milk trucks, and a performance of scenes on a clay floor. Now it is a ten-week course with four weekends of public performances of three full plays, plus a class trip to England. It took 35 years to get to that.

Let’s start small. A sliver of a scene, a section of a speech, a biography of Shakespeare. Move some desks aside, make your own “new space.” A half-hour a week.

Everything we described above – including the part about forgetting to watch the clock for lunchtime – is something we have done or seen happen with elementary students, primarily those in grades 4 through 6.

So we know it works.

It takes time, and energy, and commitment, but it works – and the result can be a breakthrough experience for your students, from the lowest reader to the most advanced, from the shyest kid to the class clown.