As part of the Alternative Shakespeare course at the University of Sheffield, we had to teach Shakespeare to students at a local primary school. This web page contains our research report.
Click here to return back to the multimedia journal.
OUR FIRST THOUGHTS
The prospect of peer tutoring, and guiding a class of thirty ten year olds through a productive exploration of Shakespeare was a particularly challenging one. We expected the children to be intimidated by any reference to Shakespeare. Our attitude towards the learning capacity of children was therefore grounded upon the notion that the children would only learn if they enjoyed Shakespeare. We based our subsequent catalogue of activities on the intention of facilitating reciprocal enjoyment, discovery, and achievement between ourselves and the children.
THE POTENTIAL FOR A PRODUCTIVE UNION
Initially, we located two dominant areas which we considered to hold great potential for leading the children into the realms of understanding and appreciating Shakespeare. The first of these is harboured within the child itself, for at the age of ten a child is essentially young enough to retain a naïve enthusiasm for anything new, not having reached the stage of potential adolescent apathy, but is also perhaps old enough to have obtained a degree of academic maturity and self control. A combination of these qualities creates the receptive nature in children of that age which, if presented with fresh ideas and varied methods of study, we felt would overcome much of the intimidating stigma attached to the prospect of an in-depth encounter with a Shakespeare play. The largely educated and privileged backgrounds of the children at Nether Green School would, we felt, also assist in precipitating this process.
The other dominant area for a potentially invigorating union between primary school children and a study of Shakespeare, lies in the context of the plays themselves. Many elements of thematic content, structure, and characterisation in Shakespeare's plays have a child-like resonance. This can be observed surprisingly in some of the language within the text, which though superficially difficult, does have a rich, fluid and creative depth to it which revels in its own sounds and rhythms in a way that a child may appreciate. An adult, may in part neglect the importance of this phenomenon, due to continually searching for the meaning behind the words rather than stopping to enjoy them in their own right. It should be stressed that we, as teachers, attempted to reflect upon the idea of 'children as teacher' by describing how our views of Shakespeare changed. This provided the initial rationale behind choosing Macbeth as an appropriate play to focus upon, for indeed we then began to locate other areas within the play that were relevant to a child's experience. The basic emotions of the characters were a particularly prominent example of this, for instance: selfish desires, envy, inferiority, guilt and betrayal, are all feelings that children encounter as acutely as adults and are indeed often especially associated with their experience. Macbeth therefore, would not only send the children on a journey that investigated familiar emotions, but would also offer the stimulus for commenting on the effects and implications of these emotions. The text also utilises fairy-tale structures and plots, thus combining real human emotions with the realms of fantasy; an amalgamation that children can easily relate to as it formulates the basis upon which much of their imaginative playing time is built. In addition, this gives rise to the conception of performance, acting and role-play as being important aspects of child's play. Consequently, the conception of a performance that stems from the very nature of a play, can therefore relate directly and easily to the children's own experience of creative role-play.
The implication of these factors, therefore, is that Shakespeare is potentially a subject that can not only be appreciated and understood by children, but one which would in fact become enhanced by their involvement with it; bringing out the base child-like issues and naiveté that exist within a play like Macbeth, by having them scrutinised through the activities of the children themselves.
OTHER AREAS TO CONSIDER
In order to realise this potential however, it was first necessary for us to channel our own experiences of Shakespeare into a focus and manner of teaching that accommodates
We decided that a concentration upon the elements within Macbeth, that we had already established as being potentially appealing to the children, would therefore be an appropriate focal point for our activities with the children. These issues of language, characters, story, and performance are each capable of stimulating ideas for interpretation and discussion that children will be able to understand but also learn from.
We shall now describe our understanding of the significance of these issues in more detail:
In addition to these focal points however, we felt that the methods used for exploring these aspects of Macbeth would be just as much a key to achieving an exciting, interesting and accommodating tutoring programme, as the subjects of that exploration. Indeed the incitement of motivation and the maintaining of concentration would probably be gained most effectively through the type of activity the children engage in. Therefore we aimed to base our teaching methods on variety, by using a number of different forms of Art and media to investigate and express ideas within Macbeth. We hoped to offer an experience of Shakespeare based on a myriad of different ways of understanding, expressing and creating it. This produced a learning process whereby a broad perception of Macbeth was encouraged together with an understanding of its numerous applications and meanings. Therefore, the mediums used for this purpose would also become an important part of the learning process, and whilst discovering the significations of the play they would also be acquiring and practising skills in creative expression; both in relation to Shakespeare and in their own right. These methods are detailed below:
The chronicle of activities on the world wide web (WWW) illustrates our intentions appropriately, in displaying all the elements of media and art that we utilised, in a coherent and hyperlinked manner. In addition we intend to use the chronicle as a further tool for understanding, by showing it to the children as an encapsulation of their experience with Macbeth, enabling them to gain further insight into the significance of the varied forms of expression they engaged in. With regard to the activities themselves our emphasis was to remain committed to the child's active participation in the interpretative and imaginative process of exploring Macbeth . We did not want them to simply be passive receptors, but to be physically and mentally involved in their own learning experience.
We felt that it was important for this primary session to act as an introduction both to our
group and to the activities we would be pursuing over the following weeks. To aid us in this
we decided to create a teaching document for the children. This included a picture of
Shakespeare, so that the children had an image of the playwright they would be dealing with
and a brief summary of theatre and plays in the Elizabethan period. This ensured that this was
the main focal point for the pupils when dealing with Shakespeare. The aim behind the
document was to give the children a reference package that they could look back on if they
needed any additional background or contextual information. Along with this reference
material, we included part one of a simplified version of the story of Macbeth. Each
week's activities would be based around a section of the plot and so, by restricting the
narrative to the first part of the story, we made sure that the children's attention would be
focused on that section for that particular day. We decided to begin each week with a reading
of the story so that the day's activities could be placed in a context, and by week three the
pupils would have a completed narrative of Macbeth that they could refer back to
later. The final sheet was an activities for today sheet that outlined the exercises that the
children would be doing that afternoon. It split the activities into drama activities and
classroom work which emphasised the different ways of approaching a text. They would first
of all be expressing themselves through the text and secondly through ideas based
on those found within the text. The whole booklet would be complemented with
the children's own work throughout the weeks and this would come together to form their
own personal record of Macbeth.
Our aim in teaching Macbeth was to implement as many different methods of
conveying our four identified local points as possible. We tried to always keep this in mind
when planning the activities for the day. To this end, we chose a broad range of exercises and
teaching methods, from acting and music to drawing and writing. This in turn helped to
emphasis the multi-faceted nature of Shakespeare. Through our activities we tried to show
that there are many ways of looking at Shakespeare's works. The first week's activities were
to be centred on Macbeth and Banquo's meeting with the witches. This proved ripe for
translation into many different interpretative exercises.
We began with drama based activities in the gym, which stressed the fact that performance is a
key issue with regard to the study of Shakespeare. We felt the need for warm-up exercises,
but did not want them to be unrelated to the rest of our teaching. Therefore we began, as
Macbeth does, with a storm. We wished to show that music and sound effects were
an intrinsic part of Shakespeare and that an atmosphere can be created through music. This
was also a fun and effective way of attracting the children's attention from the outset. We sat
in a large circle and began by creating the sound of rain with the fingertips, moved onto
stamping feet and clapping hands and reached a crescendo with the clashing of cymbals and
banging of drums before the "storm" subsided again. The children were excited and receptive
to this introduction and it made them feel at ease with us. We moved onto a different form of
warm-up where we asked the children to try to convey various emotions and characters, such
as scared, evil, and witchlike, whilst walking and running around the gym. The movement
element of this activity was useful in stimulating the children and getting them away from
sitting still and receiving information. They were involved in the exercise. The
emotions that we asked the children to convey were related to the emotions that the children
might need to use in the main drama exercise later.
The main acting activity for week one was to be a performance of a section of the witches'
language (chosen by us) from Macbeth, which might incorporate elements such as
speech, dance and music. We split into four groups with each of us taking the role of leader of
one group. Our function was not to tell the children what to do, but to try and stimulate ideas
and to bring those ideas together into a coherent performance. The aim behind this exercise
was to bring to the children's attention all that goes into creating a performance such as voice
projection, co-operation, timing and making use of actual Shakespearean language. The pupils
were very receptive to the superficially difficult nature of Shakespearean language and seemed
to enjoy the poetry and rhythmic nature of the words. The children were full of ideas of how
to perform this scene and were especially interested in the conveyance of the evil nature of the
witches. After rehearsals, each group performed their interpretation of the spell in front of the
rest of the class. In this way we introduced the concept of being an audience to the children,
but we avoided the danger of their becoming passive receptors because we encouraged their
position as being an important and active part of the entire performance. They could also
identify with the performance and compare it to their own. Performing in front of a group
takes confidence and it was clear that this came more naturally to some children than to
others, but all were commited to the activity and seemed to enjoy expressing themselves in this
manner. The performances were varied and original and everyone made good use of the
musical instruments to enhance the action rather than just using them for the sake of including
them. Performing Shakespeare gave them a greater feel for the play and an enjoyment of the
language that is not found through simply reading the play in a classroom.
As we wanted to keep a good balance of a variety of activities we returned to the classroom
for the second half of the session. Here the emphasis was to be on writing and drawing skills.
As the children were returning after break we felt the need for a second "attention grabbing"
activity. We wrote an incomplete spell on the blackboard and invited the class as a whole to
suggest possible ingredients to complete it. This involved the class in a group activity and it
also stimulated their imaginative and language skills. As a bit of fun the ingredients were
thrown into a "cauldron" and a mixture of vinegar and baking soda resulted in a bubbling
magic spell.
This activity acted as a precursor to the next exercise in which the children wrote their own
spell individually. Both the Shakespearean language of the witches' spells and the more
contemporary language of the spell we had written on the board acted as inspiration for this
activity. The idea was to encourage the children's own use of language and to help them to use
Shakespeare as a starting point for their own poetic works. The witches' spells are a good
choice for this kind of activity because they display the rich and fluid nature of Shakespeare's
text. They could channel him into their own personal and creative thought. This use of
Shakespeare becomes apparent when we examine the structure and word use in the children's
spell. For example the majority of the children chose to use rhyming couplets throughout their
work and some actually chose to use some of Shakespeare's own rhymes; 'Make it double/And
watch it bubble'. However, this was mixed with contemporary references to their friends and
to 'beer' and 'toxic waste'. This led to an interesting set of spells from the children.
Our final exercise for the day used another medium of expression. Returning to the story
sheets, we asked the children to draw their interpretations of the scenes and characters that we
had been discussing that day. Returning to the story kept the activities in a context but also
helped them to look at it differently in the light of their activities earlier in the day. The pupils
used their imagination and drew upon the acting and writing that they had previously done to
create their interpretations of the scenes. The first scene they were asked to draw was of
Macbeth and Banquo walking in the storm. These generally looked much as would be
expected, with the men in armour and having beards. This may have come from their prior
knowledge of the period of history or from other representations of Macbeth they may have
seen. However, the drawings of the witches resulted in some interesting interpretations. Many
went for the traditional vision of witches with pointed hats and long noses, but interestingly
some went for more abstract representations showing that they were using their imaginations
rather than relying on preconceived ideas.
This concluded the first week's teaching. We felt that it had gone well and that the
children had benefited academically as well as having had an enjoyable afternoon. We were
happy that we had kept our aims in mind throughout our teaching activities and that we had
used a myriad of techniques to implement them. We were surprised but pleased to note the
children's enthusiasm and intelligent attitude towards difficult elements such as grappling with
the language and their receptivity towards our aims and concepts.
At the beginning of the second session we introduced the children to the next instalment of
the Macbeth story. We attempted to bring prominent themes to the fore by
elaborating upon the text, acting out two scenes which were roughly based upon the play
itself. We made it clear that a Shakespeare play was designed to be performed, as well as
read. We furthered the idea of performance and, more importantly, that of spectacle that
was introduced to the children in week one. We wanted to continue showing how a text
'comes to life' through stage production. We hoped to display, as best we could, how the
Shakespearean play exists as an intricate combination of artistic forces and ideas, an
energetic juxtaposition of; 'words, voice inflection, facial mimicry, gesture, body movement,
make-up, head-dress, costume, accessory, stage design, lighting, music, and noise.'
A performance prompts thought and therefore at the end of each act we had a "class
discussion", in order to make the children think about the issues raised by the actors and
actresses. We stressed the importance of individual input, and the impression of each child
was deemed equally important. Emphasis was placed upon the role of discourse, because we
felt that the children would learn through conversation and experience. Indeed, much of our
teaching study was based upon the premise that:
A narrative is communication: hence, it presupposes two parties, a
sender and a receiver... Whether the narrative is experienced through a performance
or through a text, the members of the audience must respond with an interpretation;
they cannot avoid participating in the transaction. They (the children and ourselves)
must fill in the gaps...
Our performance began, and we fashioned ourselves into the role of Shakespearean
actor/actress and asked the children to play the part of imaginative receptors. We asked
them to suspend their disbelief and divorce themselves from any notion of us as people
outside of our characters. We acted out the scenes where the killing of King Duncan was
conceptualised and realised. The children watched the play intently and displayed a great
ability to focus.
Our performances ended with a "scream" which was intended to shock our audience.
Instead, the scream came across almost as parody and the children laughed. It seemed that
the 'scream' worked to release the tension which surrounded the murder plots. Afterwards
we asked the children for their responses and ideas because we wanted them to take what
they had learnt from our production, adapt their knowledge and use it productively in their
own acting exercise.
In an effort to better acquaint the children with language, character and performance
techniques we split them into pairs and made them discuss the murder of Duncan from a
specific perspective. One would play the part of Macbeth and the other, Lady Macbeth. The
boys were encouraged to play the feminine role and the girls played Macbeth, and the result
was a series of interesting cameos which were not defined by gender.
We wanted the children to be aware of other people's perspectives and many pairs
were successful in achieving this goal. The dialogue was surprisingly grotesque and some of
the body movement and gesture was extraordinarily persuasive. One boy playing Lady
Macbeth leaned over and coldly concluded that: 'All you have to do is get a dagger and stab
him. We'll be rich forever, but make sure that you put your hand over his mouth or he'll
squeal.' Another Lady Macbeth cunningly declared that; 'a drink of wine with instant poison
will do the job. If anyone suspects us, we'll blame Banquo.' Some children displayed
happiness at what they perceived to be Lady Macbeth's excitement regarding the money and
power gained through murder. Many of the Macbeths were tentative and moralistic because
the warrior was perceived as a figure disinterested in material gain. Some suggested that
Macbeth respected Duncan as a friend and therefore did not wish to murder him.
All of these ideas were acted out and some of the groups performed their dialogues in front
of the whole class. The performance was particularly successful because we created a forum
which allowed an ousting of emotion. Miss Dronfield, the regular class teacher, told of how
one of the quieter children became generally more confident after this particular exercise. He
and another child worked in front of about thirty others and afterwards he was proud of his
achievement.
The children were also introduced to mime. We sat the whole class in a large circle
and told them to pretend they were eating at a banquet. One of the teachers moved around
them pretending to be Banquo's ghost. We told the children that they could not see the
ghost until they were tapped on the head. He/she then pretended that they could see
Banquo. There were a whole range of reactions based upon fear and incredulity. We
wanted to show how mime could be a restrictive yet freeing mode of theatricality. A great
deal of what might be said in a Shakespeare play is not included in the language of the text,
but exists outside in the world of reaction, body movement, gesture and facial mimicry. All
of the children enjoyed our 'drama workshop' and we were especially pleased with the
children who, overcame their initial fears of performance.
This, we feel, tells us something about the nature of drama. All of the children
enjoyed acting, and perhaps this was because drama allows the individual some sort of
freedom he/she is denied in formal society. It is therefore more than interesting to note that
the acting exercises created an elated atmosphere, rather than the quiet concentration
associated with reading and writing in the classroom.
The acting classes involved the adoption of different gender roles, boys experienced
playing female roles and vice versa, because we wanted to introduce the children to the
Renaissance concept of sexual hierarchy. To announce the role of the boy actor and gain the
full attention of the class, Paul dressed up in a skirt and neck-tie and played the part of a
Shakespearean lady. The children were obviously amused by this, which made them think
about how Shakespearean women were portrayed upon the Renaissance stage:
A central issue of debate about the boy actor has been over whether the convention
empowers women, by allowing female characters to adopt freedoms denied them in a
patriarchal culture, or whether in the end the disguises serve only to reaffirm the sexual
hierarchy....
The class debated the role of women in the Renaissance and were surprised that they
were not allowed upon the stage. They had difficulty in relating and adjusting to the
patriarchal situation of Elizabethan England. They believed that if the female parts were
acted out properly then they could be dramatically powerful, but also agreed that the boy
actor could parody and undermine the role of women. The Shakespeare text was viewed as
something which could be moulded into different shapes depending upon which areas of
thought one wished to place emphasis. However, it was agreed that in order to carry out a
serious feminine portrayal the boy actor must have be a highly skilled figure. It was an
interesting contrast to see the girls in our class play the role of Macbeth.
We finished the acting class and took a break before introducing the children to the
idea of writing as creation. We hid letters from Macbeth to Lady Macbeth under their desks
to surprise them and gain their attention. We asked the children to use language to express
their individual responses to a set situation. The children, as Lady Macbeth, were to advise
their imaginary husbands about killing King Duncan.
The responses were often logical, intricate and subversive. One child insisted that:
'The witches probably want you to be the king because you are a brave warrior.' Another
Lady Macbeth imaginatively suggested that: 'Oil of sleep' could be used to drug King
Duncan. Another said: 'Get those spike-balls we got from Duncan for Christmas, shove them
under his pillow and they will stick in his head and it would be so hard that it would make his
eyes pop out !' Only one child said: 'I think you should not kill Duncan, because they might
find out and it is a bad idea... how do you know that you will be a good king ?' These ideas
show us that the children were working on a far more subtle level than we realised. They had
already indulged in role play and were now adapting their imagination in order to create their
own fictional narratives. Some had difficulty putting their emotions into words, but I would
argue that all people have this problem regardless of age. It seems that adults and children
might work with different vocabularies but suffer from the same problems.
As we intended, the emphasis was always on enjoyment for both pupil and tutor. The
Shakespeare play was shown to be multi-dimensional. This was reflected in the many different
activities the children were able to participate in and by the sheer volume of material we
covered in our two hour seminar. Here, we have elaborated upon the material in order to
show the full implications of such a detailed study. We continued to succeed in introducing
the children to the importance of interpretation and the myriad layers of meaning involved in a
Shakespeare play without confusing or intimidating the children.
WEEK ONE
WEEK TWO
(Umberto Eco, 'A Semiotics of Theatrical Performance': Literature in the Modern World, Critical Essays and Documents (Ed.) Dennis Walder (Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 115)
( Seymour Chatman, 'Story and Narrative': Literature in
the Modern World: Critical Essays and Documents, (Ed.) Dennis Walder (Oxford
University press, 1990), p. 107)
( Ann Thompson, 'Shakespeare and Sexuality': The Shakespeare Survey:
An Annual survey of Shakespeare Studies and Production, Number 4 6, (Ed.) Stanley Wells
(Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 6)