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...?

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...

For Kara

(For my Social Scholarship)

I looked at a few things today that might helpful (hopefully). There is a website that adapts Shakespeare's play for elementary schools that might be interesting to read about:
http://www.kidsloveshakespeare.com/

I also found an article of a performance of A Midsummer's Night Dream that might help with finding a couple other performances and how well they were received and if the actor's/company's intent was successfully achieved.
http://www.thewestonmercury.co.uk/news/education/shakespeare_adapted_for_children_1_963331

That link brought me to the Shakespeare 4 Kidz company (http://www.shakespeare4kidz.com/) who "bring the world of Shakespeare to the young people of the world" Looks like something worth researching. It has some great links on the side that discuss "why study Shakespeare?" and even includes some reviews!

Hope this helps!

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.