On Tuesday, April 24th, in partnership with the Ripon Public Library and the Ripon College Office of Community Engagement, RC Professor Ann Pleiss-Morris and the ENG 300: Shakespeare and Modern Pop Culture class hosted a celebration of William Shakespeare’s Birthday for approximately 150 freshman students at Ripon High School.The event provided a meaningful, educational experience for the freshmen students by teaching them in different mediums and forcing them to look at Shakespeare and the text in different lights. The results of the event will, hopefully, be that the freshmen came away from this experience better educated about Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare and how to examine a text through different means.
As a cohort of 13 students, Professor Pleiss-Morris' ENG 300 class teamed up into groups of two or three to prepare and present educational activities aimed at enhancing the Ripon High School freshmen students' exposure to and education of Shakespeare and in particular, Romeo and Juliet.
Divided into 6 stations, these activities included:
1) Elizabethan Pop Culture
The Elizabethan Pop Culture station gave students an idea of the time in which Shakespeare lived and wrote by enhancing the students' knowledge of the Elizabethan atmosphere in which he resided and created the masterpiece, Romeo and Juliet. This station focused specifically on examining Elizabethan culture, food, and fashion as they appeared in the Capulet's party scene in Romeo and Juliet.
2) Acting/Staging
2) Acting/Staging
In order to teach and solidify the students' understanding of the relationship between the original Shakespearean text and the staging of a work, students broke into groups to prepare a scene from Romeo and Juliet using different styles or interpretations based on a variety of different settings, time, etc. Students were encouraged to change the language/dialogue of the scene to better fit their chosen theme. Although challenged by the restrictions imposed by the fifteen minute time limit, high school participants flexed their creative muscles to came up with some interesting and surprising interpretations!
3) Shakespeare in the Media
5) Shakespearean Taboo
(a Romeo and Juliet version of the game)
Romeo and Juliet themed Taboo? What better way to test your knowledge of this well known play while interacting with the text in a new and interesting way!
6) Birthday Cupcakes and Shakespeare Trivia
Students had a chance to sit down and relax with a cupcake in honor of Shakespeare's birthday while playing a short Shakespeare trivia game directed by two librarians from the Ripon Public Library--Linda DeCramer and Amanda Canovan. The librarians also brought a number of books from the public library that featured Shakespearean themes or were adaptations of Shakespeare's plays for the students to browse.
3) Shakespeare in the Media
The Shakespeare in the Media station used a multi-media presentation to show students how Romeo and Juliet has been portrayed and adapted in various forms of media. Participants had the chance to take part in two activities during this session. The first was a song activity in which the group played popular songs with allusions to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet was meant to encourage students to find connections between the songs and the play, and then to determine wether the songs were accurate portrayals of the play. The second activity was to theoretically re-cast Romeo and Juliet with a modern cast of popularly recognized members of today's pop culture. The hilarity of casting, say, Justin Bieber as Romeo helps students to think about the characters in a new light and makes them more easily relatable to this young audience.
4) No Fear Shakespeare
At the No Fear Shakespeare station, students had the opportunity to view a movie clip from a modern adaptation of Romeo and Juliet (Gnomeo and Juliet) as well as an adaptation that is more true to the original Shakespearean text and compare two adaptations before breaking into smaller groups to review different scenes/lines from the No Fear Shakespeare version of Romeo and Juliet for comparison to the original text.
5) Shakespearean Taboo
(a Romeo and Juliet version of the game)
Romeo and Juliet themed Taboo? What better way to test your knowledge of this well known play while interacting with the text in a new and interesting way!
6) Birthday Cupcakes and Shakespeare Trivia
Students had a chance to sit down and relax with a cupcake in honor of Shakespeare's birthday while playing a short Shakespeare trivia game directed by two librarians from the Ripon Public Library--Linda DeCramer and Amanda Canovan. The librarians also brought a number of books from the public library that featured Shakespearean themes or were adaptations of Shakespeare's plays for the students to browse.
