Reflecting on our learning outcomes....

1. Gain Shakespeare Literacy 

a. Breadth (knowledge of a range of Shakespeare's works); I believe I gained this by reading many a play this semester. Additionally, by reading and discussing research papers of other students, I was able to learn more about plays that I still haven't read.

b. Depth (more thorough knowledge of a single work); I definitely got my fill of Henry V this semester. I'm proud that I feel like I know the play fairly well. By reading it in class, seeing the play, the movie AND writing a research paper on it, I definitely got the most out of this work.

c. Performance (stage and screen); I learned that just doing one of these things isn't enough for me. To get the fully experience, I have to do multiples: watch AND see. This way it's solidified in both words and actions. When I watch I pay less attention to the words. When I read, I can't picture the scenes as well because I'm trying to decipher the words! Both is better.

d. Legacy (history, scholarship, popular culture); Through my social media efforts, I've realized that there are a lot of people out there outside of schools who still care a lot about Shakespeare. It's been eye opening to see online discussions and other student blogs trying to accomplish the sames things that we are.

Submitted!

Submitted to the scholar's archive! Hang tight for other publication venues...

"Life Will Find a Way!" The Journey of my Paper.

Can you tell I have Jurassic Park on the mind?

Anyway, my paper did find it's way into the world. It was a difficult birthing process, but all of the changes were necessary. First, I started off much too broadly. I resented going back to the primary text and decided I would just try to do something cool. While an interesting topic,  it lacked real depth, and no-one would talk to me! I felt lost... but:

After I came back to Earth, I realized I would write about something that I already had a pretty strong opinion (or so I thought): The BYU Young company's production of Henry V.  Since choosing that topic, I've found many people willing to talk to me about Child targeted performances. I noticed that if you talk to people are are more accessible it will be more interesting for them AND YOU! They realize people care about what they do and you realize they care about what you're writing about them. Pretty neat! I definitely gained an appreciation for reaching out to people when I had before resented it.

Social networks in some ways weren't very successful for me. I spend a lot of time on twitter trying to get people to talk to me with no such luck. Goodread's "Shakespeare Fans Group" wasn't too talkative on my thread sadly. But I did talk to a one Bob Zazlow in an existing thread who added a little bit of depth to my language accessibility section of my paper. I think social networks can be tough: it's a hit or a miss. My theory is that a lot of people haven't figured out that you can be educational in an online social setting yet. I mean, I just realized it this semester, so I don't blame the masses. I think over time, with our help, this can change.

I was incredibly proud of the direction of my rough draft, but after a little praise and a few pointers, I realized there were some holes that I needed to fill, which I think I successfully did in my final draft. This paper taught me to take advantage of the resources that are all around us an implement them into making better writing!

Kara Visconage "Child Targeted Performances: Making it Worth the While"

Here we go! Here's the link to my final draft. (I couldn't figure out how to upload my doc directly so I just apple-V'd it. So the formatting of the paragraphs isn't perfect.. Sorry.)

Child Targeted Performances:

Making it worth the while.

Brigham Young University’s Young Company’s production of Henry V was captivating. Interesting lighting, contemporary top-40 music, dance numbers, and rap-like speech made me pay attention to what was happening on the stage. However, even with the strategies used to captivate attention, it was not evident that the child audience really understood what was going on. The fact that there was a war and ‘good guys and bad guys’ were fighting one another was clear enough. The importance of some major intricacies, however, may have missed the mark. This begs the question: “Can younger children relate to Shakespeare’s Henry V”? And even more specifically, “Are Shakespeare productions that target child audiences successful?”  If the aims and goals of child targeted Shakespeare productions meet the standards that educators would have for them, then they are more worth producing and attending. To begin: what measures success? Common Core State Standards lists several requirements for third grade language arts curriculum. In reading literature, it is optimal if a child/student can "recount stories...from diverse cultures...[and] determine the central message, lesson, or moral and explain how it is conveyed through key details in the text" and furthermore be able to "determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text"(CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.3.2 and 3.4). With these standards as a guide, four key elements come to my mind for a successful learning experience. A child targeted production if nothing else must: convey the major themes of the work through key scenes, captivate the attention of the child audience, and must create, as actor John Valdez explains, a “familiarity with Shakespeare'” and his style of speech and language.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u5I0V_b6-UNBuop8cL2SGkWSAXDPiw4iPx0tVK7LmPo/edit

Progress Report

Hey there everyone. 

I just figured that I would post about what things I took away from my meeting with Professor Burton:

I'll add more onto this later...I wrote most of what we talked about down, but I don't have the paper in front of me. 

Things to improve

• More blatant transitions in my sections (rather that being lazy with JUST a section header. Not that section headers are bad).
• Introduce some general teaching standards that schools have for teaching Shakespeare in my opening. This will make my paper more publishable.
• Talk about how I came up with the criteria for a successful performance.
• Don't assume that the people reading my paper have seen the performance--describe the atmosphere created more in depth. Put this under the "audience involvement" section. 
•  Script cutting comparisons
• Pros and cons
• sometimes vital things are cut out for the sake of time, attention span, and clarity.
• Find a publication venue...
• look through past student's posts of similar topics and see where they submitted.  

Missing piece for Kara?

Kara, you said you were waiting for a quote about how the director cut the text for a children's audience? This article talks about that from a teacher/director/enthusiast's point of view a little bit! Maybe it will be helpful! :)

Shakespeare Troupe: An Adventure in Words, Fluid Text, and Comedy

Susan C. Biondo-Hench

For Kara

Great paper! Very cohesive - the comment you're asking for about cutting the script will be cool but even if she doesn't respond, the paper seems complete even with out it!

I was a little bit surprised in the conclusion with the statement "Is Children’s theater worth the time? The answer: not always. However, if theater companies keep the goals discussed in mind, their audiences are more likely to leave with a greater appreciation of Shakespeare and theater as an educational tool in general." 
A perfect conclusion! Maybe you can more explicitly state this in the intro.
And when you talk about getting the attention of the child audiences and Love mentions the race through the audience I expected to read about the kids in the Henry V production who were actually SITTING on the stage and then took part in the war scene. Since I've seen the play you're referencing that just makes sense to me, but not all your readers will have seen that production, so whatever. :) GREAT PAPER! I can tell you've worked hard on it! It's a fun, interesting read and it's obvious that you're invested in the topic. Excellent.

What venues to submit it to? An educational blog or journal maybe, since you're writing about teaching kids about Shakespeare...?

My Baby.

Here goes nothing!

Making the Most of A Child Targeted Performance:

Making it worth the while.

Annotated Bibliography.

Annotated Bibliography: 

Johnson, Nancy J. "Children's Books: Interacting with the Curriculum." The Reading Teacher , Vol. 55, No. 2 55.2 (n.d.): n. pag. JSTOR. Web. 27 Mar. 2013. 

• Has some great things to say about how to connect text directly with a curriculum. 

Gilbert, Miriam. "Teaching Shakespeare Through Performance." Shakespeare Quarterly 35.5 (1984): 601-08. JSTOR. Web. 27 Mar. 2013. 

• Awesome article. This really hits the nail on the head as far as how performance related activites are beneficial to adolescents understanding Shakespeare's plays. 

"Company History." Propeller Theatre. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Mar. 2013.

• Gives  insights about their "Pocket" productions of Shakespeare; which are shortened, aimed toward young audiences and are generally successful.

"Teresa Love Biography." David O. McKay School of Education. Brigham Young University, 2012. Web. 27 Mar. 2013.

•  Gives a Bio about Teresa love, a BYU professor and expert in children's theater.

MOST of my information, however, comes from interviews that I've conducted...

Textual

text evidence to be integrated into my paper.

Act 3.6:

For David

I haven't read this but the title sounds promising!

Shakespeare under Different Flags: The Bard in German Classrooms from Hitler to Honecker: 

http://www.jstor.org/stable/40543127?&Search=yes&searchText=children&searchText=Shakespeare&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DShakespeare%2Band%2Bchildren%26acc%3Don%26wc%3Don%26fc%3Doff&prevSearch=&item=1&ttl=44567&returnArticleService=showFullText

Excuse my absence, here's a post instead.

[First of all, sorry to Amelia. I wasn't in class today. I woke up late and I thought instead of being extremely late to class today that my time would be better spent on the blog. I'll make some comments on your rough draft and it you need any help, my email can be found on Learning Suite.]

Anyways, I just want to take this time to say that I have become a believer of this process.

It's my nature to be obstinant and stubborn. I resist change and don't like it when someone suggests that there might be a better way to do something that I already think I'm doing well. I automatically assume that what they really meant was that my work is mediocre and my strategies are the same. Maybe they are, but I've got to stop assuming people think that way.

Anyway, I've learned that this way of writing is more than just busy work (as I treated it at first). I find myself checking this blog more frequently (I think I'm on here more than any other social media site now). I get excited when people actually want to talk to me about what I'm writing and actually have really relevant things to say!! 

I guess what I just want to say, as you care more about this blog, you'll see results in your paper/efforts. I sound like an infomercial. Whatever! Paper on, class! 

Life is Rough... Draft.

Hello all. Here's my super rough draft. Beware that I have a tendency to use rather colloquial language in my writing. Don't worry, kids, it'll alllll be cleaned up. Basically, I'm using the Henry V production we saw as a case study (along with a few other productions I am currently conversing with) and comparing their success techniques to those of scholars and of my own humble opinion. If there was a mark that was missed---was it one of the things that a scholar instructed blatantly? etc. For now, i don't really think it's necessary to have a stance on if I think these types of performances are successful or not. I think it varies from performance to performance. Instead, I'm clearly stating what I think a performance NEEDS in order to be successful. 

How to make a child targeted performance more successful? Title to be determined?

Upon attending Brigham Young University’s Young Company’s production of Henry V, I was captivated, certainly. Interesting lighting, contemporary top-40 music, dance numbers, and rap-like speech made me pay attention to what was happening on the stage. However, even with the strategies used to captivate attention, it was not evident that the child audience really understood what was going on. The fact that there was a war taking place and that there were ‘good guys and bad guys’ was understood, yes. The importance of some major intricacies, however, may have missed the mark. This begs the question: “Can younger children relate to Shakespeare’s Henry V”? And even more specifically, “Are Shakespeare productions that target child audiences successful?”  In this paper I hope to prove that the aims and goals of child targeted Shakespeare productions meet the goals and standards that educators would have for them---what they would have their children learn from the play. To start off: what measures success?  Four key elements come to mind for a successful learning experience. A child targeted production if nothing else must: captivate the attention of the child audience, it must create familiarity with Shakespearean style speech and language, it must convey the major themes of the work and,  it must highlight the importance of the key scenes.

Son of a Glove-maker!!

Try it! It's fun. The insult in this post's title came from my 291 class. We all said, "hey, that sounds like an insult!"

Soon you'll be cursing those loggerheaded milk-livered foot-lickers until you're blue in the face!!

Dear Amelia,

Dear Amelia,

I am looking forward to helping you with your paper. I want to be helpful enough to be able offer you some nugget of wisdom to give you encouragement or to push you forward in your work. 

A Girl Worth Writing For!

How bout an audience that has a brain, that always speaks their mind?
Who cares about the paper I'm writing?

• Me
• In the future, I hope to produce writing geared toward younger audiences. Not YA, but ages 9-14ish. If I want to convey themes, morals, subtle humor, etc, then it will be beneficial to learn how something as universal as Shakespeare makes these attempts. 

Progress

Hello friends.

I just wanted to update you on what I've been doing.

People I've contacted:

• Mackenzie Larsen
• played Henry in the Henry V production we saw

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes.

So I've been working on my annotated bibliography.... working on it has helped me to really question if I've been going in the right direction. I'm been feeling pretty lost. Things haven't been working out like I'd hoped and the direction of my paper is unsure. I fear committing to something that will yield no reward. 

Yes, I still want target an adolescent audience. Yes, I think it would be interesting to track all of the shakespeare adaptations in television. Is this practical? No. Does it really have much weight? Eh... Am I excited about it? less and less.

The thing is... I think that doing Shakespeare adaptation via television was pretty trendy in the 90's.. but  I'm not seeing too much of it now. It makes me wonder if this topic is really relevant to the current time period.

But you know what IS timeless? Theatre. 

Something is rotten in the State of Denmark. it's stuck in my head.

 I had to share this! I was on a discussion in Goodreads and a few people were talking about how they successfully teach Shakespeare in their classrooms.

Help = Appreciated.

Thanks so much for the comments on my last post. I really appreciate the input. The comparison to Dwight Schrute, while fun, may not merit a 12 page paper. Though I was excited about it, I appreciate the "come back to Earth, pal" comments.