|
COPYRIGHT 2006 www.wmich.edu/compdr
Edward L. Rocklin. Performance Approaches to Teaching Shakespeare. Urbana, Ill.: National Council of Teachers of English, 2005. Pp. xxvii + 413. $39.95 paperbound.
Edward L. Rocklin's Performance Approaches to Teaching Shakespeare is designed for high school, college, and university English teachers. The book is divided into two parts. The first chapter of part 1 deals with the principles of a performance approach to teaching drama, focusing on showing students how to distinguish drama from prose fiction and how to read a play in all of its dimensions, visual and aural as well as textual. The second chapter focuses on the theoretical underpinning of a performance approach to teaching Shakespeare. Part 2 consists of three chapters devoted to explaining numerous strategies for teaching three Shakespearean plays through performance: The Taming of the Shrew, Richard III, and Hamlet. The chapter on The Taming of the Shrew focuses on action and scene (drawing on the work of Emrys Jones), role (created by the dramatist), and character (created by the actor). The chapter on Richard III focuses on framing and refraining actions and introduces Bertrand Evans's concept of "discrepant awareness." And the chapter on Hamlet focuses on defamiliarizing the play and on trying out multiple interpretations of scenes.
I totally agree with Rocklin's view that Shakespeare's plays should be taught as theater as well as literature. Performance Approaches explains and illustrates from real classroom experiences many ways of doing just...
Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.
|
Bookmark this article
Print this article
Link to this article
Email this article
Digg It!
Add to del.icio.us
RSS
