Shakespeare Conquest Scholar Project
The students study the master of human nature and creates the most engaging experience so his works come to life. Studying one play in depth during first semester, reading a scene or two weekly and then having a mentored discussion to apply the content to their lives–to help them see that the plays are relevant to the things they struggle with like jealousy, friendships, and…yes…love.
They learn about the Bard and all about Elizabethan times so that the plays make more sense.
Once they understand the Renaissance mindset about our personalities, comments like someone being phlegmatic don’t go over their heads.
The students are inspired to read, watch, or listen to 17 Shakespeare plays by being part of a race to be crowned a King or a Queen. They are ceremoniously rewarded, often with a necklace constructed out of candy bars, but always with much high language being uttered and uproarious applause. This marathon experience allows them to become relatively fluent in the “foreign” language of our mother tongue.
Second semester they perform a play (or scenes from a play) so that the meanings and nuances can really be understood.
To be honest, many students practically memorize everyone’s lines during the rehearsal process. The first time I mentored this project we were performing Twelfth Night and a mom told me that her son said to her, “Mom, our play is so funny. But you won’t get it.” He understood the language and pitied his mom and the jokes she would miss by not having studied as he had!