I. Curricular Framework

Concept:

Timelessnes

Essential Question:

What connections can be established between Elizabethan theater and modern theater?

Bridge:

Picture Yourself

Content:

Elizabethan Theater

Outcomes:

II. Standards Aligned

III. Instruction and Assessment

1. Connect: Connecting to the Concept Experientially

Objective: To connect and pique student's interest in Elizabethan Times.

Activity: Students enter a time zone (your room trobe lights if possible). Play sci-fi music if possible 2001. A Space Odyssey or Star Wars theme music as you take students back to Elizabethan times. Music should gradually fade from sci-fi to Elizabethan music as you reveal an Elizabethan setting with members of the Society for Creative Anachronism in full garb with props and weapons. They unfreeze from their position and launch into a sword fight followed by a discussion of life in Elizabethan times allowing time for questions by the students. If members of Society for Creative Anachronism are not available, contact local community theaters, college or high school theater groups for talent or costumes.

Assessment: Questions and discussion are invited and encouraged

2. Attend: Attending to the Connection

Objective: To give students the opportunity to reflect and image their time travel experience.

Activity: Students are given a travel log in which to draw or comment on their thoughts and observations about their time travel adventure. Students are invited to share their discoveries.

Assessment: Travel log entries.

Assessment, Phase One, Level of Engagement, Fascination:

3. Image: Creating a Mental Picture

Objective: To extend the experience of the time travel into their own personal experience.

Activity: Play Elizabethan Music and then show a clip from the 1939 movie, "Elizabeth and Essex" starring Bette Davis and Errol Flynn. Now have students imagine themselves in Elizabethan Times. Then have them draw a picture of themselves and write what a typical day would be like for them in Elizabethan Times. (Provide fru-fru of all sorts for drawings.) Teacher does a picture to share also. Students and teacher share pictures and writing.

Assessment: Students reflect in their travel log while teacher reads from Bard of Avon.

Assessment, Phase Two, Seeing the Big Picture:

4. Inform: Receiving Facts & Knowledge

Objective: To define specific knowledge gained and challenge students to use this knowledge.

Activity: Play Elizabethan music. Divide students into groups. Have students brainstorm everything they know about Elizabethan times to include William Shakespeare. Students share their insight and information gained. Use groups for this activity. Teacher then reads from Bard of Avon and Romeo and Juliet to show the language of Elizabethan Times as compared to modern times.

Assessment: Students reflect in travel logs. Teacher dismisses class using a Shakespearean couplet: "Take thy faces hence"

Assessment, Phase Three, Success with Acquiring Knowledge:

5. Practice: Developing Skills

Objective: To try a new experience using knowledge gained.

Activity: Play Elizabethan music. Read excerpts from Romeo and Juliet. Give students appropriate selections of couplets to read to each other (from Romeo and Juliet). Divide students into groups. Give each group a few couplets to transform into an Elizabethan Action Cartoon. Use chart paper and markers. Groups post and share their toons. Teacher points out the rhythm of the couplets and challenges students to re-read their toons while the rhythm is tapped out.

Assessment: Toons that are created and reflections in travel logs.

Assessment, Phase Four, Success with Acquiring Skills:

6. Extend: Extending Learning to the Outside World

Objective: To extend the students experience so it truly becomes their own.

Activity: Review life in Elizabethan Times - focus on language using the book Shakespeare Insults. Revisit couplets and extend discussion to modern day rap and how rap is similar to the language of Shakespeare in terms of rhythm and using the language of the common man. Play Romeo and Juliet rap and have students tap out rhythms as they did for the couplets. Now divide students into groups and challenge them to create a rap of their own depicting a day in the life of Shakespeare. They may use couplets for their rap if they wish. Provide percussion instruments so students can choose to be a writer, musician or performer.

Assessment: Reflect in travel logs and raps.

7. Refine: Refining the Extension

Objective: To refine and evaluate students work (rehearse-practice-videotape).

Activity: Students practice their raps for each other. Group input and self-evaluations. Groups now choreograph movement for their raps. Videotape for self-evaluation.

Assessment: Videotape and reflect in travel log.

8. Perform: Creative Manifestation of Material Learned

Objective: To integrate, to share, and to celebrate student's work with peers and community.

Activity: Students publish and perform their raps for all English classes. A final videotape is made so students can share with family and friends outside of school.

Assessment: Students hand in travel logs and return via music to the 20th century.

Assessment, Phase Five,Performance, Creative Use of Material Learned: