"Teaching Shakespeare Through Exercises on Acting and on the Basic Emotions"

by Gerald Grow

School of Journalism, Media & Graphic Arts

Florida A&M University, Tallahassee FL 32307 USA

Available: http://www.longleaf.net/ggrow

Introduction

While teaching at a private liberal arts college near Berkeley, I obtained special approval one semester to teach an experimental course on Shakespeare.

This class differed from the usual discussion class in two main ways.

• First, I attempted to incorporate some elements of actor training into the class.
• Second, a series of core exercises in basic emotions ran through the semester like a backbone.

Otherwise, many classes were spent in familiar discussion format, supplemented by an occasional lecture. I met with 28 upperclassmen, twice a week, 90 minutes each time, for a 12-week semester. During this time, we spent

• 6 weeks on Romeo and Juliet,
• 4 on King Lear, and
• 2 on The Winter's Tale.

Students wrote extensive journals, which I frequently read. There were no exams or formal papers.

The experimental elements, however, changed the tone of the class so much that students found it sometimes disorienting, sometimes exhilarating, but, I think, seldom dull. Final evaluations indicate that I reached at least as many students with this approach as in the previous semester's regular discussion course.

Sadly, I lost (to my knowledge) two outstanding students--who simply were not able to function in the class. One of those two, a young woman who had mastered an academic approach to literature, complained that she was disoriented by this approach and dropped the class. For a first effort at teaching in a new way, though, I consider this class successful enough to report, in the hope that other teachers of Shakespeare will find some of these approaches worth trying out.

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