In the last post, Kelly briefly talked about the production of Alice Walker's The Color Purple as a musical in her post introducing African American literature. In the last several weeks, several works of literature have been produced in our area- Death of a Salesman, Midsummer Night's Dream- and more are to come - Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet. Since all four group members are future educators, I wanted to ask about your thoughts about teaching plays. Will you take your classes on trips to see plays whenever there is one you may utlitlize? Will you reowrk your curriculum to follow the productions? Or do youu think a video or class rendition can capture the true workings of a play?
In my high school, we did a humanities rotation class that switched subjects every nine weeks: music, drama, and art. In drama class, everyday we watched movies of plays and I grew to hate them. In ENG 476 (Literature for Secondary Curriculum) Dr. Lenoir showed a movie dramatization of Julius Caesar. It wasn't a play, but the acotrs said most of the lnes verbatim. It was like watching a regular movie, albeit Shakespeare. I liked it.
What do you think is the most effective way to introduce theater to your students? Do you think you have gained benefical knowledge for teaching plays while studying at WKU?
I definitely think I will try to implement play viewings into my curriculum as a teacher. I personally enjoyed the plays that I viewed in high school, mainly because I already had a good understanding of the play itself and seeing it being performed was somewhat of a "magical moment" when everything clicked and went into action. I think that it's extremely important to make sure students have read the play BEFORE they view it. Obviously, both elements are important (plays were meant to be viewed, after all) but too often students will become lazy and will just want to be entertained by the production instead of reading it and studying it beforehand.
ReplyDeleteI haven't had the opportunity to study too many plays during my time at Western, but at my previously attended community college, I had the chance to explore a variety of plays in depth. The professor always allowed us to view the movie after the test, so that we would've HAD to have already read it and studied it independently. Beyond those few courses during my freshman and sophmore years, I have not studied a play until this semester.
I agree completely Jessica. In the classroom setting, plays are meant to be studied, so it is important that students read the play before seeing.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of introducing theater to my students, I think it is important to provide some background material about acting (Shakespeare's day only men performed on stage) and staging (stage directions, back stage layout, entrances, lighting, etc.). However, I do not think that students have to necessarily be tested over such material (but they can be). I have only studied a few plays at the college level, but I feel prepared to teach plays and drama to my students. Theater Appreciation was beneficial in the sense that I now know about acting and staging so, therefore, I can pass that information along to my students.
Written by: Elizabeth Willbanks
I agree with Jessica about teaching a play before going to see it, however I can see that some students would get bored with it because they already know what is going to happen. When I teach plays in the classroom, I definitely will not mix reading a play with showing a video of it. For instance, I wouldn’t show the video for act one and then have the students read act two. Mixing the two is something that many of my teachers did and it just confused me, because I wasn’t sure where we were in the play or in the movie. I liked one or other.
ReplyDeleteI like what Elizabeth said about giving the students some background on stage productions before I teach any play. I would do a unit on play productions, like a mini theater appreciation, so the students would know some of the ins and outs of a production. I would also teach students the time period in which the play is set in so the students have an idea of what is going on the in world around the play. It helps to root the plot and the characters.
I have had a lot of work with plays and theater in general throughout both high school and college. I used to be on the Forensics team in high school and I was a musical theater major for a year and a half in college. In addition to that, I have also taken theater appreciation and ENG 459 Modern Drama.