Shakespeare’s Tempest

Last week I saw a TV documentary on the Black Adder series. I had forgotten how brilliant it was. One of the things I really enjoyed about it was Baldrick’s cunning plans – particularly the one where he engraves his name on a bullet. He has heard that everyone has a bullet with “their name on it”. He reasons therefore that by having the bullet with his own name on in his possession, he would be safe.

We have devised a cunning plan of our own which we hope will hook the interest of a group of students who are not always easy to engage. Next week we are working with two Northamptonshire schools on a week long residency based on Shakespeare’s Tempest [click here for information about Bamboozle training course on working with Shakespeare ]. We want to find a non-threatening way of drawing the students into the drama without them feeling ‘on the spot’ or ‘looked at’ or judged by us or their teachers, or worse, their peers.

We are going to begin the week’s activities with building a boat for the opening scene of the play. We will have a variety of materials that can be fashioned into a shape to represent a boat and will invite the students to help build it. For many students making something is an unthreatening activity and as they build the boat they are unwittingly investing into the drama or at least the idea of the drama. In this way we can gradually introduce other activities once the students have ‘bought in’ to the project by being involved in the practical building activity.

If you are working with a group that are not easy to focus then maybe you can introduce them to whatever you are doing by getting them to draw or make something that relates to the task you have in mind. Let me know how you get on with this strategy or of any similar ones that you have used before – I am always glad to hear of things that work – and I could pass them on to other Bites readers. I look forward to hearing from you.

Bamboozle one day course:  Shakespeare For SEN – 22 July 2010.  Click here for more information.