A few lines from Shakespeare may still be in your mind somewhere, deep down. Everybody in the UK is taught Shakespeare at school. Shakespeare scholarship’s leading figures gather to discuss his works. It is evident that Shakespeare’s poetry and plays still have an important place in English education 450-years after their birth. The new methods of teaching Shakespeare to children encourage them to be creative with Shakespeare’s language, meaning, and learning in the process.
The English curriculum of the new English Curriculum continues to recommend that students learn Shakespeare at least twice between the ages 12 and 14 years. However, debates have raged over how Shakespeare should be taught since the beginning of public education.
Victorians introduced Shakespearean literature to “improve young minds”. In the latter part of the 20th century, this was transformed into a desk-based method that required students to study each scene in detail.
Rex Gibson, a Cambridge professor and author of Teaching Shakespeare 1998, made it possible to put the emphasis on theatrical performances. Gibson argued that Shakespeare’s plays should be treated as scripts to perform, so that students are able actively to interpret the text in relevant ways.
Students are able to use the complexity of Shakespeare’s writings to inspire their creativity. Children have to be able to think outside the box in order to understand complex plots, difficult language and far-flung settings. It gives children the ability to perform the plays and gain confidence in the text.
Gibson’s philosophy today, and the practical exercises that he has developed, are a part of a unified approach to teaching Shakespeare Workshops for primary school children.
Although each company, such as Shakespeare’s Globe, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and Shakespeare’s School Festival, has a different approach to teaching Shakespeare’s characters, they share a common commitment to ensemble rehearsals. In the end, both teachers and children are increasingly invited to perform with Shakespeare.
Playing with Language
Joe Winston, a drama educator, has explored this playful approach in Shakespeare’s writing with some of the RSC’s youngest students. He has used games to teach the story of The Tempest to four-year-olds and five-year olds.
My ongoing research with the Shakespeare Schools’ Festival has examined how teachers are encouraged, in conjunction with their students and vocal possibilities of the language, to play with the odd words. One teacher introduced her class to Richard III by encouraging them to enjoy the “strange words” and to “taste them like sweets”. These children enjoy this and feel that the language is “theirs” when they start their rehearsals.
It’s a fun approach that avoids boring explanations of Shakespeare’s language. This is increasingly supported by linguistic research. Guy Cook, a Linguist suggests that young children will learn language through play with “form”, just as much as “content”.
Another important element of this approach is the ensemble, a theatrical model for collaborative creativity. Working together creates safety, which is not always a comfort zone. This helps to remove pressure (there are no right or wrong answers) and lowers the stakes. However, members of the group remain accountable to each others, the text demands, and, if performing in front of an audience, their peers. One child’s “star turns” are discouraged. The teacher becomes an informed facilitator and not the unchallengeable leader.
In practice, the ensemble approach can see parts shared among the entire cast. Picture a primary class filling the Globe stage during The Tempest. Prospero denies Ariel freedom in the scene where Ariel begs for it. One student stands at the centre of the stage as Prospero while 25 children dance around him as Ariel.
Students can also work in small groups to explore a scene during lesson or rehearsal. They can use freeze frames and modern improvisations to do this. Teachers can engage in discussion with students by asking them to go back to their scripts and to look at other versions of the play or make connections to their own interests. Consider, for instance, a group GCSE students who were rehearsing Titus Andronicus. They were enthralled by the dark themes and themes of loyalty as well as betrayal. While only two actors will be performing the final scene on stage, the whole class participated in creating it.
Taking creative risks
This approach relies on the teacher’s games, experiments, and improvisations, but students have to make their own creative leaps. This way of studying Shakespeare is difficult and requires mutual trust.
Educational levels and grade boundaries are not always clear. This makes it difficult to predict artistic and educational outcomes. National evaluations by Shakespeare’s Schools Festivals and RSC-commissioned research show that students can play with Shakespeare, and make meanings from their own lives, and they experience academic engagement and increased confidence.