Shakespeare with a Small Group - Part 2: Guided Reading

In my overview post for this series, I outlined what I was looking for in a Shakespeare study for my older children.  In Part 1 I described our abridged performance and in this post I'd like to describe what I did for my second idea, the a guided reading of the play with a memory work and a small performance.

Format

• Five sessions, approximately every other week

• Location alternated between two homes

• At each session, we began with prayer, then gave the kids an opportunity to share some sort of memory work with the group, then started on Shakespeare.  We would be started with Shakespeare by 1:30

• The weekend following the 5th session, we had a family performance and potluck on a Sunday afternoon

Materials

I used the straight-forward Dover Thrift Edition of Julius Caesar for the kids, and I also used an iOS app by DodgePoint Software on my iPhone for our audio.  I really like these apps for our Shakespeare studies.  The audio is generally good, and having the text and the audio linked is absolutely fantastic.  It is extremely easy to repeat a speech, start in the middle of a scene, or go back just a little to hear something again.  The text is linked such that if you touch the name of a person speaking, the audio will automatically begin again in that spot.  They have twelve of Shakespeare's plays and the app only costs $1.99 for each play.

I prefer to use a very basic version of the text, like the Dover Thrift edition, in a class for a few reasons.  First, I want the students to realize that if we take it slowly, reading the text out loud or following along while listening to an audio recording and stopping for frequent narrations, they can understand a great deal of the text.  Also, I find that if they have access to a simplified version of the text (like the No Fear series), it can become far too easy to just glance over and see the paraphrase rather than put in the mental effort to try and figure it out.  Also, a version like No Fear Shakespeare or even one with heavy footnotes can reveal a little too much about the text - explaining some of the  innuendo that would have gone completely over the kids' heads otherwise.  Also, I want them to know that we don't need to understand every little bit of what we read.  It is ok to have phrases here and there that we don't quite understand - Shakespeare has so much depth we can get overwhelmed if we are trying to understand it all in one go.

I should note that I do think that a version like No Fear or one with a lot of footnotes can be very helpful for the teacher in her preparation, particularly if she feels weak in Shakespeare or intimidated by it.  If that's what it takes to get her going in teaching Shakespeare, then I think it is worth it.  But I think we have to be careful not to offer too much so the students are still being required to do the mind work and aren't overwhelmed with detailed explanations.

First Session

At our first gathering, I used the retelling of Julius Caesar from The Best-Loved Plays of Shakespeare to give an overview of the play.  I read it out loud, pausing frequently for narrations and to update the character map I was drawing on the board.  Each of the students had their own map they were drawing as well.

Finished Product

After reading through the retelling, we stepped outside and I introduced the kids to their group memory work.  We would all work on memorizing the first part of Marc Antony's funeral oration ("Friends, Romans, Countrymen...") together, and to help them I printed out the speech in large type across 14 pages, with each page having a few lines on it.  We ran through the first couple of pages several times, then went back inside for a little time with the play.  I used the audio from the app and everyone read along, pausing ever so often to narrate.  I asked the students to use their character maps to narrate the play to their parents as their homework.

Subsequent Sessions

The subsequent sessions were similar.  We listened to the play, narrated, and took a break in the middle to work on the memory work.  

At the second session, I spread out a selection of speeches from Julius Caesar and invited the students to choose one.  The speeches ranged in length from 8-16 lines or so and were from various parts of the play.  The speeches were to be memorized at home for our final performance.

I also had an additional assignment for the students.  Each family was assigned one of the principal characters of the play (Caesar, Brutus, Marc Antony, and Cassius) and they had to find three or more groups of short lines from the play that described the person's character.  They had to write these lines on index cards, and pick one person from each family to be that character on stage during the performance.

At the third session, we listened to part of the play, but we also watched the movie from a little after the death of Caesar until the end of the funeral narrations scene.  We all enjoyed watching the staging of the play, and enjoyed discussing how the actors matched (or didn't match!) our mental images of the characters.

In order to create a little randomness in who would do our narrations, I used two different methods to choose the narrators.  At first I assigned each person a number and rolled a die, but this proved to be a rather unreliable way of ensuring everyone would get a chance to narrate as frequently as the other students.  I found it worked better to write everyone's name (including mine!) on slips of paper and then drawing them at random, not replacing the names until every name had been drawn.  I also chose the names in pairs, so that they could help each other with narrations.  They particularly enjoyed having me as a narrator too, and I liked how that emphasized that we are all learning and enjoying Shakespeare together.

Family Performance

We met for lunch this time for our family performance, coming together at about noon, eating lunch, then having our performance at about 2.  We met at my house, and again I hung the canvas drop cloth from a beam in our living room and used that as a back-drop.  The kids came up with very simple Roman-ish costumes, such as white sheets and tunics and oversize white undershirts with leather belts and dark pants. (Oh, and play swords, can't forget the swords!)  It gave a nice feel to the performance, and was very easy to put together.

For our performance, we began by sharing our descriptions of each of the main characters.  I had one person come on stage to pretend to be the character, and then other students would come across the stage, say their short line(s) describing that character, then move off the stage.  It served as a nice introduction to the characters, and it was a good experience for the kids to have to dig into the play a little to find the lines.

After this, the students came on stage one by one and recited their memorized speech.  I gave a brief introduction to each speech, placing it in the context of the play.  I had the students come on in the order that their speech appeared in the play.  When it was time for the funeral oration, all the students came on stage and they spoke it in sequence, each student speaking a few lines in turn so that their speech would be more distinct.

What I Might Do Differently Next Time

I think it would have been better to have six sessions rather than five, but we couldn't get the scheduling to work for that.  It was a little tight in the last session, and we ended up needing to add on another hour to the final session so we could finish the play and discuss the performance.  We never even rehearsed the play portion, but it was very simple to stage and the kids did just fine with that. We ended up with seven students, which was a perfectly reasonable number, but we could have easily had a few more.

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Shakespeare with a Small Group - Part 1: The Performance

In my overview post for this series, I outlined what I was looking for in a Shakespeare study for my older children.  In this post I'd like to describe what I did for my first idea, the abridged performance.

Last August, I invited three other families to join us in our Shakespeare study.  We had a total of 11 children, ages 9 - 13, who participated in the play.  We also had a number of younger siblings, some of whom were roped in at the last minute to play small non-speaking roles.

Format

• 6 Sessions - I scheduled these every other week through September and October
• All sessions and the family performance were hosted at my house
• Each session lasted a little about 2 1/2 hours, from 1 - 3:30 p.m.
• At each session, we began with prayer, then gave the kids an opportunity to share some sort of memory work with the group, then started on Shakespeare.  We would be started with Shakespeare by 1:30 - 1:45, depending on how long we spent on memory work and if anyone was late
• The weekend following the 6th session, I scheduled a family performance and potluck on a Sunday afternoon/evening

Materials
I used a script from Shakespeare with Children: Six Scripts for Young Players.  I like this book because it uses Shakespeare's own language for the plays, adding a narrator to bring the play together and move the action along.  I thought the abridgment of The Tempest was very well done.  The book is rather large and bulky and clearly directed towards a teacher in a classroom.  I wasn't sure how the author intended the book to be used for a class, but I ended up having the spine cut off and the pages punched at a local copy store, then making copies of the script for the kids.

First Session
At the first session, I read an abridged version of The Tempest, pausing often for narration and to let the students add details to their character and plot maps.  This took about an hour.

The Shakespeare map I drew as I read.  Alas, I didn't manage to take a photo without glare

After we became familiar with the story, I passed out copies of the script from Shakespeare with Children: Six Scripts for Young Players and assigned temporary parts to the kids.  We moved outside for our rehearsal and started reading through the first act of the play.

I decided not to assign parts immediately, so I could get a sense for how well the children read and how interested they were in performing.

Second Session
In the second session, I started with a game to help the kids refresh their memories about the plot and the characters.  I printed the names of the characters on slips of paper and had the kids lay them out on the table.  Then I had a separate stack of cards with character attributes or something the character did in the play which I passed out to the kids.  The kids helped each other place all the names, then we briefly reviewed the plot using our character and plot maps.  I think this took about a half an hour, perhaps a little more.

After this review, I started handing out parts and we began reading through the play.  With 11 actors, plus me as the narrator, we had just enough to cast the play.  Some of the kids had two parts and with a few small changes we were able to cast the play so that they didn't have to appear on the stage at the same time as two different characters.

Third - Fifth Sessions
At these sessions, we immediately jumped into rehearsing the play.  Sometimes I would have the kids rehearse just the movements of the scene, and sometimes we would read and move around.  I wanted the kids to be very familiar with their parts, but I did not expect that they would memorize them in this short of a time.  I also encouraged the kids to read through their parts in between sessions, but only a few of them actually did this.

Sixth Session
Our sixth session together was a dress rehearsal.  I asked the performers to bring a costume and props for themselves as well as anything they thought might be handy for other players.  After a little discussion and creativity, everyone had basic costumes.  We rehearsed the play again in costume and with props, both with dialogue and without.

Family Performance
I asked the families to come over at about 3:30 p.m. so we could get ready and start our performance at 4:30.  We have a very open floor plan at our house, and suspended a large drop cloth from the ceiling to serve as a backdrop for the play.  We rearranged our family room furniture, added a few more chairs, and had a cozy little theater, complete with a backstage and an off stage room for props and quick costume changes.

Our performance lasted about a half an hour, and everyone really enjoyed it.  The kids performed in costume with props and scripts in hand, but they were generally familiar enough with the play and their parts that they could move through the play well and act as they read.  After the play, we had shared a meal, visited, and prayed together.  We finished up at about 7:30 p.m.

What I Might Do Differently Next Time
I was really quite pleased with how this went, and there isn't much in my control that I would change.  This is an activity that is best when everyone is able to attend each time, and we were somewhat hampered in this by schedule conflicts.  It would have been nice to be able to rehearse multiple scenes at the same time, but with the number of actors this wasn't quite possible.  I especially would have liked to spend more time rehearsing the last scene of the play with everyone, but with the scheduling problems we didn't have time.  But in the end the kids carried it off well and I think it was a memorable, enjoyable, and worthwhile experience for everyone.

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Shakespeare with a Small Group - Overview

This year I decided I wanted to share my love for Shakespeare with a small group of homeschooling families.  I had a few requirements:

1. I did not want the meetings to stretch throughout the whole year.  
2. I wanted the sessions to have a performance aspect to them, as I wanted to give the children the opportunity to perform in front of a small audience.
3. I did not want the sessions to require a lot of additional outside class time work from the families.
4. I wanted the children to memorize a few passages of Shakespeare's words and to be able to read at least parts of the play fluently.
5. I wanted the children to have ample opportunity to read, consider, and enjoy Shakespeare's actual words within the bounds of our limited time together.

Given these requirements, I had two different ideas.  Thanks to the willingness of some old and new friends, I had the opportunity to try them both.  

Idea #1 - The Performance

In the fall, the children performed an abridged version of The Tempest, using the script from Shakespeare with Children, Six Scripts for Young Players.

Idea #2 - The Play with a Memorywork (and a small performance)

In the spring, the children and I read through Julius Caesar then had a small performance to share what the children had learned and memorized with their families.

Rather than write one long post, I'll split this up into two more posts where I'll share more details about how I set up our meetings, the resources I used, how I worked with the kids, and how we put together the performances. 

I found studying Shakespeare with a group really enhanced the experience for my children and myself, and it was well worth the effort.   I hope this little series could be helpful for anyone who might want to try this with their own small group.  

Family Studies: Weekly Work (2014-2015)

This year we had three defined areas where all my children worked together:  Morning Time,  Morning Read Aloud and Weekly Work.

Weekly Work
I also used Sarah's loop scheduling for this area as well.  I also moved this to the Reminders app about mid-year and that worked wonderfully.  We spent about 30 minutes on this block, and I generally would group Picture Study and Pilgrim's Progress since each only took about 10-15 min.

Emma (Y7) was present for all of these subjects, but Gregory (Y3) did not have to join us for Plutarch.  Nathan (Y1) was excused from Shakespeare and Plutarch.

Plutarch - Dion then Crassus, using Ann White's excellent (and free!) study guides.  These are absolutely invaluable in making Plutarch doable, especially in the beginning.  I had hoped to study three lives, but two ended up working out much better for us.

Shakespeare - Midsummer Night's Dream then Richard III (which we still haven't finished, but we're getting close!)  I should write more about how we study Shakespeare as a family...  I did several years ago, but we've expanded our studies now that I have older kids.  I had planned to study Julius Caesar in the spring, but I hadn't accounted for the length and the complexity of Richard III when I planned that.

Picture Study - Fra Angelico then Diego Velasquez.  We used Ambleside's art suggestions for both, but then I expanded our Velasquez study to include more paintings mentioned in I, Juan de Pareja.  I added a painting by Pareja as well.  I highly recommend reading that book if you study Velasquez, it was one of our best read alouds of the year.  I had planned to study Degas as listed in the AO schedule, but we were enjoying our Velasquez study so much I decided not to end it prematurely.

Music Study - St. Hildegard, using the AO suggestions, then we studied the orchestra using The Story of the Orchestra and a series of wonderful videos on YouTube from the London Philharmonic Orchestra.  I had intended on studying Rachmaninoff as well, but we didn't get to him.  I'm thinking we'll study him next year because he is a composer I really enjoy.

Pilgrim's Progress - We read this all year using the AO 72 week breakdown.  I'm continuing it over the summer so as to not lose momentum.  I hope to finish it somewhere around the end of the 2nd Term, which will give me some room to add a book I want to read next spring.

Handicrafts Instruction - In the first term we worked on small felt projects like felt food and some felt items from Big Little Felt Universe.  This book is not for (most) children but my boys were quite taken with the pocketknife and compass from the book so I made some modifications and they created some fun items.  In the second term we worked on knot tying which was also a big success.  In the third term, the kids all took a clay modeling class at a local art studio (that counts, right??) and made cups, boxes, bowls, pitchers and an assortment of small knives, hammers and other tools.  Emma made a beautiful earring holder for her various dangly earrings.

Nature Study - I did a special study of clover with Gregory (9) and Nathan (7) at the beginning of the year and Emma (13) did one about corn.  They were good studies and went well, but I neglected to have anything on deck to go next.  Emma and I informally studied mushrooms (meaning - we read about them, did lots of observations, intentionally went out to look for them, but didn't actually write anything down) as it was a great year for mushroom hunting, but that's about it.  Not that there weren't lots of nature discoveries and observations and some entries in our Calendar of Firsts, but we did not do any other special studies or nature study journal entries.

Fine Arts and Nature Fridays

I would love to belong to a Charlotte Mason coop like the Truth, Goodness, Beauty Community or this Charlotte Mason Nature Study Group.  However, while I've found a couple people who are vaguely interested, I haven't found anyone who looks at this and says, "yes, this is wonderful, this is exactly what I've been looking for!  Let's sit down and figure out how to make this happen!".  After feeling sorry for myself for awhile, I decided last spring that I would create my own coop.  For my family.  After all, just because we can't find anyone to join us shouldn't mean that would should deny ourselves the satisfaction and enjoyment we would derive from such an excellent endeavor.  We call it our Fine Arts and Nature Club and we've placed it under the patronage of Blessed John Paul the Second.

We started this last spring, right towards the end of our school year.  I put together a schedule that included Shakespeare, picture study, an art project, poetry, a nature walk with some nature journalling, composer study, some handicrafts time while listening to a read-aloud - in short, all the things you'd expect to see in a Charlotte Mason inspired Fine Arts and Nature coop.  Every Friday we would dive into all these beautiful and wonderful gifts and we all - from the four year old to this thirty-six year old mother - love it.  It is has a firm place in our school schedule, and it is a wonderful and enriching way to end the school week.

I find it interesting is to see how these Fine Arts and Nature Club Fridays bleed over into the rest of our week.  After awhile, we decided poetry just on Friday wasn't enough.  We wanted to listen to Longfellow's poetry as part of our morning time together too.  We started including more read-aloud and handicraft time during the week too, including some time listening to an audiobook together so I can craft too.  Knitting, crochet, and now pine needle basket making are daily events in our house, accompanied by good literature.  Our music studies have spilled over as well, although a little more fitfully.  By giving these good things a day of their own, they have filled and blessed that day and overflowed into the rest of our week, the rest of our lives.

As I was planning our Fine Arts and Nature Fridays for this term, I thought I would like to share what our schedule looks like, and also what actually ends up happening.  After all, in a house with busy and active children, those two things generally do not end up looking exactly alike, do they!

Friday, January 18th, 2013

The Plan:

8:30	Prayer
8:45	Poetry and Recitation	Read from Hiawatha, then review memory-work
9:00	Composer Biography	Part of Handel from Story-Lives of Great Musicians (plus narration)
9:15	Picture Study	Winslow Homer Engraved version of the Sharpshooter Oil Painting Sharpshooter Oil Painting  (I used the Art Authority app for this painting)  Picture study of the oil painting, then look at both, compare.  Discuss why the different versions exist.
9:30	Recess
9:50	Math Game	Rummikub
10:40	Snack and Shakespeare	Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare (narrate, draw a character map)
11:00	Art and Music	http://www.deepspacesparkle.com/2009/03/18/multi-media-winter-birch-trees/ (for Emma) http://www.deepspacesparkle.com/2011/11/09/birch-trees-art-lesson/ (for boys) Listen to Water Music
12:00	Angelus, then Lunch	Watch Great Composers and Their Music: George Frideric Handel (Discovery Education)

I usually would have my weekly meeting with Emma after lunch, then we would go on a nature walk and do some journalling.  However, we had a trip to the ice skating rink planned with our homeschooling group, so we did that instead!

So here's what our actual day looked like instead:

9:00	Prayer	Started late because it was a difficult morning - largely hair brushing angst with the 10 year old and a mom who is trying to do too many things in the morning and doesn’t want to give up any of them.
9:15	Poetry and Recitation	Read a short section from Hiawatha, then practiced memory-work as planned.
9:35	Composer Biography	Handel from Story-Lives of Great Musicians - this went well, and everyone enjoyed this read aloud.
9:50	Recess	The kids and I played with the plastic bat and ball.  They had fun hitting the ball while I attempted to pitch.  Boy, we are all so bad at it, but there was a lot of giggling and running around!
10:10	Picture Study	Winslow Homer Sharpshooter Oil Painting This went very well.  Gregory (7), before he even saw the picture, wanted to do a drawing narration of the painting.  We broke out the art supplies and did this for our art project instead.  Given the time, I quickly sliced some carrots, put out some peanut butter, and the kids snacked while they drew.  Just to add to the multi-tasking, I also played Water Music for them.  Emma decided to draw something inspired by the music instead of the Sharpshooter drawing, but I encouraged her to finish the Sharpshooter drawing then work on her water picture, as she was at least 3/4 of the way done already.
11:00	Math Game	Rummikub - we all enjoy this game and it is good practice for everyone in spotting patterns and strategy.
11:40	Read-aloud	After we finished the game, we decided to listen to the retelling of Shakespeare in the car (yay, Librivox) and I read some of The Shakespeare Stealer instead.  This is our squeeze in where ever we can read-aloud right now.  It doesn’t have an official place in the schedule, but we’re managing to find a few places to read it during the week.  We are all enjoying it a great deal!
12:00	Angelus, then Lunch	Watch Great Composers and Their Music: George Frideric Handel (Discovery Education)
12:45	Out the door for ice skating!	We listened to Nesbit’s version of Much Ado About Nothing in the car, pausing every few minutes to narrate and untangle the plot.  I wish the reader had read a little more slowly!

So even though this was a morning where I whined to my husband, "can I please give up now?  How about boarding school?", the day was redeemed and made lovely by our rich and varied course of study.  Yes, the art project was replaced by our sharpshooter drawn narrations, but I think that was a reasonable substitution.  We still need to draw our character map for Much Ado About Nothing, but we'll do that next week and it'll serve as a good review.

Enjoying Shakespeare with Children

I recently read a post on Grace in Loving Chaos about how her family has approached their Shakespeare studies and it inspired me to write about our recent study of As You Like It.

Background:
Unlike many homeschoolers, I did not start with an introduction to the Bard as a person or with much information about when or where he wrote.  After all, there are many authors I read or have my children read with little to no personal introduction.  I think Shakespeare's writing - his comedic plays in particular - transcend time and place, and such information, while interesting, is not vital for understanding his works.  I will certainly introduce my children to Shakespeare as a person, the Globe Theatre, and Elizabethan England, but I think I will do that in the context of our historical studies rather than as a precursor to enjoying some of his plays.

We started our study informally by listening to Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare.  We listened to the version from LibriVox several times in the car over the past school year and this has been a great help.  The recording from LibriVox, while perhaps read a little too quickly, is still worthwhile.  While listening, we had a number of casual conversations about the types of plays Shakespeare wrote, themes in his plays, and common narrative arcs.

In May, I decided it was time to study one play in earnest with Emma (9) and Gregory (5).  After a bit of discussion with my daughter, we decided on As You Like It.

Weeks 1 and 2:
During our Wednesday afternoon read-aloud slot, I read the Lamb's version of As You Like It in two parts.  My daughter narrated after each session, and my son, while not required to narrate, added comments.  We also created a map of the characters and their relationships to each other on the white board, which my daughter then copied and embellished.

Week 3:
After we had a solid character map and an overview of the play, we watched the 1978 BBC version of As You Like It, available streaming from Amazon or for rental from Netflix.  I do not recommend the 1936 version with Bergner and Olivier.  Olivier is no where near his best in this one, and Bergner, with her heavy German accent, is almost impossible to understand in many places.  The BBC version is not exactly amazing, but it is a solid presentation of the play with decent actors.

We watched the play over three days, about 45 minutes to a session.  This matched the children's attention spans well and gave us more opportunity for discussion.  We watched during lunch, pausing for questions and occasional narrations.  Emma's character map was quite handy, especially during our first session.

Week 4:
Next we listened to an audio version of the play.  I chose the BBC Radio Shakespeare version, available for download from Amazon (through Audible).  I do not recommend the LibriVox version of the play; the actors are uneven and some are almost impossible to follow.  We listened to this while we knitted, drew, or did other handiwork sorts of things over the course of several days.  At the children's request, we also listened to the play in the car a couple of weeks later.  By this point they had no trouble distinguishing characters or figuring out what was happening.

As the kids get older (or I find another family or two who would like to join us!) I'd love to do an informal group reading at this point.  We're not there yet, but I hope we'll be able to do it someday.

This Summer:
Fortuitously, a semi-local Shakespeare troupe will be performing As You Like It next month, so we've made plans to see it on stage too.  I doubt we'll be fortunate enough to have this happen for each play we study, but I hope to take advantage of this whenever it occurs.