Teaching the Tempest Day 3

Making progress!

Assessment

We began class with a quick google forms quiz.  I wanted some concrete data on how much students were understanding.  In addition, I wanted some accountability so that ALL students perceive this unit as a learning experience and not just some blow-off unit.

Quiz scores were pretty solid.  Everyone answered 4 out of 8 questions correctly.  A few tripped over the trick detail questions like “in how many days did Prospero promise to let Ariel go free.”  One student even chose one of the joke answers just because it was funny.

I was surprised that 40% of students said that Prospero saved Ariel from a storm rather than a tree.  While I deliberately put that “distraction” answer in there, I thought more would not have been fooled by it.

All in all, I’m not a huge fan of those kinds of assessments anyway.  I much prefer active reading notes to assess reading, but I’ll create a longer post on that sometime in the future!

Character and Space

I enjoy working with Act 2.  We worked on character development the use of space. Having completed the “Screaming Sculpture” activity earlier in the year, students need only to be reminded of strategies for using space.

Act 2 Scene 1

Setting the Scene

In Act 2, Scene 1, I have the Alonso and company enter somberly.  Alonso believes that he lost his son. I place a chair in the upstage middle and tell Alonso that he can sit there after he enters…and pretend it’s a stump.  

Since Antonio and Sebastian begin their plot to kill the king, I ask them to stand together, but off to the side.  Moreover, since their lines complain that the island smells and offers nothing “advantageous to life,” it makes sense that they would stand around making faces and swatting at flies.

I tell Gonzalo that to portray an older person, bend every joint possible in the body, then imagine that they are locked there and you have to move everything as one unit.  In addition, since there is an empty awkward silence, Gonzalo tries to fill it. Much to the chagrin of everyone else.

Then off we go.  

Running the Scene

I tell Sebastian and Antonio to drip sarcasm (and review verbal irony.)

I point out that Alonso’s “you cram these words into mine ears against the stomach of my sense” offers an opportunity to “change the stage picture.”  By showing his strong emotional response it makes sense for him to physically move away from the rest of the characters.

As Sebastian and Antonio begin to broach the idea of killing Alonso, I stop to talk about how people “build up” to potentially awkward conversations.  This time, I had two students stand up and improvise. “Okay,” I told one of them. “You are interested in asking this person out on a date, but you have no idea whether they are interested in you or not.  How do you bring up the subject?”

So we played around with the “beating around the bush” for a bit to get the feel of those conversations, then moved back to the scene after Alonso and Gonzalo fall asleep.

Here, I explained the upcoming treason section, and tell  Antonio to begin a “slow journey” around the room as he convinces Sebastian to kill the king.  He should plan his movements so that he arrives at the sleeping Gonzalo, lying next to Alonso, at the “Sir Prudence” line.  

When Ariel awakes Gonzalo, who, in turn, wakes Alonso, I love telling Sebastian and Antonio that they’ve been caught and need to come up with an excuse to cover the drawn swords.  Busted!! What do you do? This suggestion helps better capture the energy of the end of the scene.

Act 2 Scene 2

The Caliban, Trinculo and Stephano scene is even more fun, and fairly straightforward.  I had Caliban kick some crumpled up paper around on his entrance to generate some frustrated energy so the he “needs must curse.”  Then hide under a sweatshirt upon Trinculo’s entrance. I tried to conjure up some fear in Trinculo about the upcoming storm (with various degrees of success.)  

I try to reinforce embedded stage directions, as well.  How do you know he smells like a fish? Has legs? How do you know he’s warm?

I instructed Trinculo to lie down under the sweatshirt head facing Caliban’s feet and explained to the class that in Shakespeare’s time it was common to rent a hotel bed, not a room, that may actually have a “bedfellow” stranger in it.  (That usually generates some hullabaloo!)

I told Stephano to sing the song loudly and badly.  The more of each, the better.

The Trinculo felt a bit reticent this year, so I didn’t have Stephano grab him by the legs and yank him out from under the sweatshirt like I usually do.  I did, however, ask him to act to the embedded stage direction in Stephano’s “do not turn me about. My stomach is not constant” line.

All in all, comprehension seemed solid.  Interestingly enough, for better worse, my typically less enthusiastic class is outperforming my other two classes which seemed lackadaisical today. Part of could be the end of the year…I’m not sure.  Hopefully, energy will improve with them.