Alberta, Canada
Senior Goal I Objectives

Shakespeare’s text holds valuable tools that students can use to unlock and understand meaning. In this unit by Anna Porter, students explore how to use the tools of research, context, textual analysis, imagery and punctuation to help them unlock meaning in Shakespeare’s text. This unit is created for an Intermediate to Advanced drama class with a basic background in plot structure and acting technique. Through this five lesson series, students will use journals, participate in class discussions, activities and performance to explore the tools used to unlock a text. Assessment tools include informal assessment as well as a final group presentation and performance.

Students will demonstrate an understanding of the foundations of acting. At the end of the unit, students will be able to understand the value of making rich acting choices on stage. This unit gives students an opportunity to explore and develop acting skills on a more advanced level, regardless of experience. They will explore skills, including voice, movement, emotional recall, memory, playing objectives, and character development culminating in a final scene.

Friendly Shakespeare teaches a simple and effective method of script analysis for Shakespeare. It uses punctuation and keywords in the text to help students understand the characters' needs, make specific acting choices, and get them on their feet immediately. This is not dry, sitting in a classroom discussion. It’s physicalizing the text, focusing on the character’s needs and tactics (something every drama student should know full well) and bringing Shakespeare to life. At the end of the class you will be able to demystify Shakespeare's text and understand how to help your actors make clear, active and emotionally connected choices in Shakespeare's plays.

Why should you take a class on empathy? And why is theatre the perfect vehicle for empathy? Empathy, the more sought-after and inclusive cousin of sympathy, is the experiencing of someone else’s experience in the world. What it would be like if you were wearing their clothes, their life? Teaching students to understand the clothes that they’re putting on, the characters and their lives teaches students not how to act but how to be. It allows the students to feel what someone else feels and experiences, which can and should translate to their fellow actors and peers away from the stage. It will lead to a stronger class connection, stronger performances and stronger students who will seek out understanding instead of isolation and fear.

Brought to you by instructor Steven Stack, creator of The Empathetic Classroom, this course looks at ways to move on from the worldwide pandemic, while honoring the past and learning from it. In the past year, students had many things taken from them: school, hanging out with friends, freedom, hope, and innocence. With this course, each session will highlight one specific topic relating to moving on. There will also be activities for each session that will help your students own the past, embrace their own and others’ narratives and scars, create a stronger classroom community, find ways to be where their feet are planted, and learn to play again.

This course is about the fact that so-called soft skills are sought after and highly valued in professional work environments, educational settings, and in everyday social interactions. They're valuable life skills, but we can't always identify these skills within a standard educational setting, and yet, they are incredibly useful in education and beyond. That's why it's important to be able to identify these soft skills in the classroom and in the educational process and to recognize that these soft skills are being taught every day in the drama curriculum. We need to concentrate our efforts into making sure that these skills are identified and utilized within our classrooms. They are built into every arts curriculum a school offers, especially the theater arts.