2011 Schools Guide - Stratford Festival

Tools for Teachers
4
Pre-Show Presentations (see opposite)
Study Guides and Online Teaching Materials (page 6)
The Teaching
Shakespeare School
Explore teaching through drama and the arts
The Teaching Shakespeare School is a hands-on professional
development program that demonstrates how the arts can be
incorporated into the curriculum to address the different aspects
of student learning and inform the teaching of literacy and
other subject areas.
Bring Shakespeare to life in the classroom as teachers, students
and actors together explore the plays from a dramatic rather than
simply a literary point of view. This interactive approach helps
students discover and form personal connections to the
characters and the text; think critically about the big ideas, issues
and emotions in the story; and gain a sense of empowerment and
ownership of Shakespeare’s stories, characters, thoughts, feelings
and language as part of themselves. For teachers, the Teaching
Shakespeare School helps rekindle a love for teaching and
suggests strategies and methodologies to reinvigorate and
expand their own best teaching practices.
The Teaching Shakespeare School takes place in four stages:
Stage One: Teacher Workshops
Teachers spend three days at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival
previewing plays and working with Education Department staff and
actors to explore strategies that will help demystify Shakespeare.
Stage Two: Classroom Visits
In partnership with a professional actor, plan and teach three
lessons on your chosen play.
Stage Three: Student Theatre Trips
Choose from a selection of dates for which excellent seats have
already been reserved.
Stage Four: Student Players’ Festival (optional)
Classes perform scenes from Shakespeare before expert
adjudicators on the stage of the Studio Theatre.
The workshops, the classroom visits and your theatre tickets in
August are funded by the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. Subsidies,
based on need, are available for the student trip in the autumn.
For full details and to download a registration form, please visit
stratfordshakespearefestival.com/tss.