Isn't it remarkable that the world over we are celebrating the birth of Shakespeare, 450 years ago. Ok so we are not exactly sure that his birthday was on 23rd April but it has become the agreed date of his birth due to him being Christened on 26th April. It is also remarkable that we have so many of his plays and sonnets, all thanks to two blokes who, one day in 1623 thought "Perhaps, seeing as he died seven years ago we really ought to try to collect all of Shakespeare's plays into a folio." It is also remarkable that we know so little about about the great man's life. Bill Bryson says that we can only say for certain where Shakespeare was on half a dozen occasions during his life with any degree of certainly. What isn't remarkable though is that we are still enjoying his plays and their stories and characters.
This week my year eight classes have been meeting Prince Hamlet and his, apologies for the Americanism here, situation, for the first time. I learned a long time ago that kids much prefer blood and gore and murder and baddies to Elizabethan comic word play and so they relished the challenge of working out how the mess of the start of the play came about and then trying to make sense of what what happening in Hamlet's mind. My school has recently asked all year five to eight students to bring an iPad into school for every lesson and this week I attempted to combine the technological complications of iPads and the moral ones of Hamlet's mind.
We started by making a whole class tableau of what Hamlet was thinking at the start of the play, built around one persuaded volunteer, playing the part of the Prince of Denmark. In turn each year eight took up a position that showed what they thought Hamlet was thinking. Once done I took a photo and shared it with the class members via the amazing google docs. I was also able to able to project the same image on the drama studio screen via Apple TV (and, but the way, kids liked the silliness of me holding my iPad at 90 degrees to the projector screen, blowing on my iPad, and the image appearing on the screen). The class then took their picture of their tableau, dropped in to the really good Photocard APP, and cropped it to focus on their own part of Hamlet's mind. Photocard, just like conventional postcards, has a back to it so they next set about writing on the back what their part of Hamlet's mind was thinking. Having saved the whole photocard to their camera roll and shared it with me via their Drama google folder (bless google and their collective cotton socks) the students were ready to bring to life Hamlet's mind.
Now in group's of seven, again using a persuaded volunteer to be the main Hamlet, the groups set about turning what they had written into a group soliloquy. Hot debate ensued among the actors as to who was going to speak in what order and very quickly, thanks to a bit of prompting from Mr Lawrence, the debate moved into not who was speaking first rather which would be the best line to speak first. It was great to watch as were their finished group soliloquies. Well done to all of the students.
Ok so we could have written the thoughts on paper, yes. We could have done the work without taking photos, Apple TV, Photocard, cropping pictures and sharing etc etc .... BUT .... the desire that the classes showed to make the positions they used as accurate as possible was great to see as was the commitment to communicating the poor young Prince's mindset. So much of that commitment came from their use of their iPads and in equal portions from working with a cracking story and set of characters.
In other Shakespeare news that I am sure would make the 450 year old scribe proud, my year thirteen students are getting psyched up for their forthcoming final A level Drama exam. One of the areas they will be writing about is an all female version of The Taming of The Shrew which we watched together in Singapore, earlier this school year. While the language of the plays and stories are the same as 400 years ago the constant desire to create the next new interpretation gives this Drama teacher confidence that William Shakespeare's legacy will go for another 450 years.
Happy Birthday Mr Shakespeare.