Ancient Greece and the Theatre

Mention "thespian" to a middle schooler and they all crack up. Humor is such an important method to teaching the younglings, especially when it borders on the inappropriate.

Mention teaching theatre history to middle school students to most drama teachers and you might get a very similar response... Still I have decided to give teaching theatre history to Grade 6 a shot to see what happens...

My Grade 6 lab rats seemed like a great place to start particularly because they are studying ancient Athens in their Social Studies Curriculum.

Working with @bar_qu means that I also have a partner in crime allowing me to continue my xcurricular pursuits. This time around though I was sure to Incorporate the Art teacher.

To be clear what I know of ancient Greece is very similar to what most of my students remember about being thespians... It has something or other to do with myths and "phallusies".

So I asked my students directly if they would like to receive a lesson and worksheet based on note collecting from a PowerPoint I found on "Ancient Greece for Kids" or if they would just prefer to research and perform their own Ancient Greek play about "A Day in the Life of an Ancient Athenian". (credit to @bar_qu for that one)

Funny... Only six of forty said they'd prefer me and notes over self-directed research... Currently I'm battling the urge to feel hurt and the urge to feel elated.

I assigned them small groups (SOLE methodology) with one tablet per group. I gave them a Greek letter as a group name for them to look up so they could inscribe it for themselves on their books. Then I asked, "what makes for an Ancient Greek Production?"

All the World's A Stage

They have currently had only 90 minutes to work but already they are telling me about:

• Comedies, Tragedies, and Satyr


• That the Agora was a pretty cool place to gather


• That our school Theatre is actually a lot like a Greek theatre and in fact some of the names are still the same.


• That men were the stage folk, and that if we're going to be doing this we're also going to need some masks.

I am a verbose lecturer at the best of times. They could have listened to me describe these things for an hour, retained less and had less fun. I guess I'm elated after all.

Currently they are taking pictures of our theatre to compare with schematics of a Dionysian Theatre and putting it all together using "Show Me"... But mostly they are eager to to start writing their scripts.

One girl asked if I was going to let the girls act? "Of course" I said, to which she responded: "Even though that wouldn't be authentic?"

Another girl asked if they would be allowed to use the social text to gather information to put in her play.

Folks, I can't make this stuff up... Oh yeah, and THIS (what your are reading) is my lesson plan.

The art teacher agreed ahead of time to give them time to build masks. The SS teacher will use his time to research A Day in the Life... And I will use the drama time to build costumes and scenes for our burgeoning chorus of players.

And I couldn't be more pleased with the learning, engagement, and attention/retention of details. Yes, I had a couple of Spartans vying for attention as they practiced for the Trojan wars. Man were they disappointed when they discovered that the Greeks let all the action occur off-stage; another detail they'll be sure to recall if there happened to be a test on this down the road.

Next up: A blog entry on why I'm making grade 7 students do monologues from Shakespeare's First Folio...

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The App' I discussed above is called Show Me. There are other great apps out there like this for free. This just happened to be available to the kids on the Apple Cart at school.

Technology Abuse: A Solution?

One of the biggest problems we encountered with technology use in our school last year was the abuse of the physical technology itself.  Keys were being pulled off to be reorganized as a prank.  Students were finding ways to change the accessibility options to confuse less computer-literate students and ultimately their profiles were becoming corrupted due to an overwhelming tendency of students wanting to "personalize" their profiles in Windows.

I didn't encounter this problem in my classes... what I mean is, I did not notice this activity happening in my class, just the frustration that my students had having to deal with the ramifications of these behaviours happening in other classes.

So what was the difference?

I believe it comes from two things:

1. Having looked into Sugata Mitra's SOLE project research I have determined that the best course of action when giving students access to computers they do not own (particularly at the upper-middle class middle school level) is to assign one computer per four students.  This tends to allow students to self govern and does seem to keep them on-task and less likely to personalize.  This is particularly important for times of student-directed research.
2. Currently I am working with students on creating personal reflections.  I have had the students create an outline of what they wish to create first, and on paper, and then submit to me their ideas and explain which technology they would like to use to create the final version of the project.  This limits the amount of time they have access to the computers, and also ensures that they have a plan of action before they ever log-on.  Students are using computers now to enhance their personal responses, if the computer is the appropriate tool, and the use of the computer is happening in a more responsible manner.  Most importantly students do not appear to be "killing time" before they can take the project home to work on.

My criticism of practices that I'm seeing elsewhere is best summed up by an allegory:
When you hand a hammer to a student and say use this, they will, but not necessarily for what you intended.  If you hand them a nail and a piece of wood they'll choose the hammer because it's the correct tool to put the two together.

In conclusion, may I encourage you with this: Don't hand students technology because you want them to use the technology, hand them the project and have them choose the technology to use.  In the meantime it is your responsibility to model as many different TOOLS as you can in your lessons.