English with Drama PGCE Pre-Course Task
My Dream Texts, part one
As part of the AQA B AS English Literature course, students study a unit titled ‘Aspects of
Narrative’ and within this unit they study a modern novel (post 1990).
The aim of this study is to introduce students to the central position of narrative in the ways
in which literary texts work. The term narrative is taken in a broad sense, involving many
different aspects of literary representation, with particular focus on how narratives are
constructed by authors, and the different ways in which they can be responded to by
readers.
If you could select any modern novel to study for this unit, what novel would
it be?
We will be discussing your ideas on Friday 28th September, so please ensure
that you bring your thoughts (and ideally a copy of the novel) to this session.
Below is a template of how you might like to organise your thinking, but please feel free to enlarge / adapt
these headings.
My Dream Modern
Novel - How the
narrative is
constructed:
What would I Ideas for
want pupils
engaging
to learn?
students (you
might like to
research different
learning styles and
think of different
types of activities
for different types
of learners)
Ideas for
developing
deep
conceptual
understanding
List possible online / multi-media links and resources and links to other subjects:
How would I check
individual learner
progress both
during and at the
end of the study of
the novel?
Much ado about Shakespeare
Can pupils be persuaded that the Bard isn't too hard? Performances and podcasts could just do the trick
Chris Arnot and Heather Neill
The Guardian, Tuesday 6 February 2007
Stratford in the early 1960s: a young Michael Wood and his classmates have been brought down from
Manchester grammar school by two inspirational English teachers. They've visited the Judith Shakespeare
Wimpy Bar. They've sneaked into the Rose and Crown in Sheep Street for an illegal pint and - even better they've seen Eric Porter and Ian Holm in Henry IV parts one and two on the same day.
Stratford in February 2007 and Michael Wood, now the author of In Search of Shakespeare and a board
member at the Royal Shakespeare Company, is standing centre stage at the Courtyard Theatre recalling that
"fantastic, life-changing experience". Ranged around him are 100 teachers from all over the UK. They are
gathered for a day-long conference organised by the RSC's Teaching Shakespeare: Time for Change campaign.
"Why," Wood asks, "are these 16th-century texts still at the centre of public education? What's the point,
when they're acknowledged to be difficult? The vocabulary runs to over 25,000 words at a time when national
literacy surveys tell us that you need to know only 600 words to read the Sun or the Highway Code. It would be
easier to say 'Let's junk it. Make it an option for posh schools only.'"
Teeming with insights
But it just so happens that Shakespeare lived in turbulent times, when wars were started on the basis of
"dodgy dossiers" and terrorists were being hunted down, Wood points out. "What's more, a play like Twelfth
Night is teeming with insights into the blurring of sexual identity." Just two examples of what he calls "openended discussion material to explore ideas".
Sarah Lewis teaches at Bampton primary school in Devon, where, even at key stage 2, they think the Bard is
going to be hard. "They have older brothers and sisters who've filled them with false preconceptions," Lewis
says. "If you approach Shakespeare in the right way, he can give special needs children a chance to shine
through performing and, at the same time, extend the knowledge and language of the brighter ones. But we
primary teachers are jacks-of-all-trades. It helps to have had some specialist drama training."
Jacqui O'Hanlon, the RSC's head of professional development, soon has a group of teachers engaged in warmup activities. Within half an hour she has begun to dismantle A Midsummer Night's Dream bit by bit. In the
course of rebuilding it, she's throwing out questions and posing challenges. At one point Titania is draped over
the top of a piano. Then she is part of two human chains between which Hermia must stroll while listening to
conflicting advice as she struggles with the choice of running away with Lysander or marrying Demetrius.
Looking on is Maria Evans, the RSC's director of learning, who wants to spread these approaches to many more
classrooms as a way of countering the assumption that Shakespeare is "a byword for boredom". Time for
Change launched last autumn, at the same time the education department (DfES) and the Globe Theatre in
London announced plans for collaboration. If what is missing in Shakespeare teaching is the performance
element, theatres are obvious allies.
From next month, students will be able to download a podcast of Much Ado About Nothing recorded live at
the Globe. It is the latest development in the battle to make accessible the only author every student has to
study at school. But is answering questions on a couple of scenes in one of three set plays, at 14 and again at
16, really still worth doing?
Even asking the question seems like heresy, but the DfES has been obliged to face it. Gerry Swain, director of
the English programme in the secondary national strategy, says that studying Shakespeare is worthwhile
because "it develops an active approach to human relationships and motivation as well as language".
Shakespeare wrote to be performed, and it is now more than 20 years since Dr Rex Gibson first stood in front
of a group of teachers waving a copy of one of the plays and insisting: "This is not a text, it's a script." His
methods have been widely available since 1991 through the Cambridge School Shakespeare series, along with
his Teaching Shakespeare. Surely the days of mournfully reading from dog-eared photocopies must be long
gone?
Apparently not. An Ofsted inspector, who doesn't wish to be named, says Shakespeare classes can be
depressing. Sometimes the teacher doesn't even have a copy of the play in the room, relying instead on
drumming in the couple of scenes necessary to answer exam questions.
"My team tells me that there are a few beacons of excellence out there," says Evans. "We believe passionately
that the Bard's works can be made accessible to all backgrounds and abilities and we have access to a range of
easy but effective techniques that work, even with teenagers classified as 'challenging'.
"There's always been polarisation between the literary criticism approach and the drama approach. We're
calling for a far greater integration of the two. But there's no doubt that, when first approached, it's better to
do it as drama."
Yet, says Ian McNeilly, communications director of the National Association for the Teaching of English:
"Teachers are under pressure to deliver data and end up teaching to the test. English teachers like to see
Shakespeare as drama, but they are subject to constraints outside their control."
While Swain says it was never the intention that pupils should study only a handful of scenes, he recognises
that this is what often happens. Now 260 English consultants are going into classrooms to provide hands-on
help. These troubleshooters have been working with Globe education practitioners (GEPs) in nine regions to
develop skills to bridge the gap between performance and exam answers.
Exploring performance
The GEPs use theatre skills to develop strategies for teaching the language, to explore performance (from
simply speaking the text to a presentation of the whole play) and to find ways into understanding character.
"Of course," says Fiona Banks, head of learning and teaching practice at the Globe, "these all overlap.
Language is not an isolated concept to do merely with the meaning of individual words, but conveys character
and emotion."
Alongside this, the Globe is running a project called Playing Shakespeare, aimed at key stage 3. This is where
the podcast - funded by the DfES - comes in. A special production of Much Ado will be seen, free, by 6,000
children over five dates in March, supported by resource material on the Globe website and interviews with
the director and actors in MP3 format.
Some teachers are already succeeding in making Shakespeare fun while delivering results. Rachel RayChoudhuri is a drama teacher in Hackney. She says she is always amazed at "how much young people love
Shakespeare". She works closely with Kate Ford, head of English at Haggerston, a comprehensive where 32
languages are spoken. Ford says they start with the advantage that young people know Shakespeare is
important - but that doesn't stop them delivering Romeo and Juliet in rap rhythm or interviewing Hamlet in
Jerry Springer style.
"There has never been a more exciting time to move forward the teaching of Shakespeare," Banks says.
Perhaps the curling photocopies can be binned forthwith.
English with Drama PGCE Pre-Course Task
My Dream Texts, part two
Read the article ‘Much Ado about Shakespeare’, which argues that whilst "there has never
been a more exciting time to move forward the teaching of Shakespeare," provision in the
classroom isn’t always inspiring a love of the Bard in students.
If you had an A Level Literature class and could teach any Shakespeare
play, which play would you teach and why?
We will be discussing your ideas on Friday 28th September, so please ensure
that you bring your ideas to this session.
Below is a template of how you might like to organise your thinking, but please feel free to enlarge / adapt
these headings.
My Dream
Shakespeare text Key themes:
What would I Ideas for
want pupils
engaging
to learn?
students (you
might like to
research different
learning styles and
think of different
types of activities
for different types
of learners)
How would
you counter
the difficulties
his language
can present?
List possible online / multi-media links and resources and links to other subjects:
How would I check
individual learner
progress both
during and at the
end of the study of
the play?
To extend your thinking further:
What ideas do you have about how might you use the same ‘dream’
Shakespeare text, but teach it to a year 8 class?