Week 4: Shakespeare Animations

Here are a few Shakespeare Animations found on youtube. Maybe you could think about animating the plays you are studying!

Whiteboard Drawings The Tempest, Act I Scene 1 

 

 

Finger Puppet Shakespeare: The Tempest

 

 

Craft Video: The Tempest

 

 

This is a short summary of William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” in form of a common craft video.

 

Anya explains Shakespeare’s famous play to two young girls, using flash animation. © 2003.

Some quotes from the children:
“Does everybody die?”
“That is just so awful! I mean, like, imagine running into your sword!”
“Are you sure you didn’t read this hard enough?”
“I like that play, but I liked Hamlet better.”

Watch it here!
Credits:
Commentators: Erin and Jenny Hayden, ages 11 and 7.
Creative Consultant: Nancy Sans
Animation: Anya Rose and Jim Hickcox
Writing, Narration, and Design: Anya Rose
Music: Verdi Requiem

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A big thank you!

To all who attended our inset day, we hope you enjoyed yourselves. Here is a key activity from each Artist led workshop:

Ciara’s sculpting game – one person as sculptor, the other as clay. Choosing an adjective and an emotion to mould the other person into. Activity can be extended by exploring the different ways we might all interpret a sculpted person, using sticky labels.

Paula’s Free Writing – 10 minutes of solid writing, not taking pen off page. No right or wrong way. Example of structuring the activity, ask students to write about all the objects they’ve seen from the moment you woke up to now.

Dee’s animation activity – using ipad app ZU3D, we used 12 shots per frame but this can be changed on the app.

Some more photos from the day:

Extraordinary Words, Extraordinary Worlds

In Autumn 2014, our team of theatre practitioners and writers drew on their experience of devised theatre, writing for theatre, immersive theatre and physical theatre to devise a programme that allowed children to explore and create ‘Extraordinary Worlds’. Whilst developing a framework that each of our schools can follow, we want to ensure that Verse vs Verse allows for individuality and for individual needs and priorities to be met. Some schools have opted to focus on a set text and give their students an alternative way of experiencing these books; whilst other schools have opted to explore a wide range of literature. Throughout this term the children have delved into lots of texts sampling fiction and non-fiction and debating The Nature of Stories considering what makes a good story and where they might be found. Students have explored stories whether it is their set text or a book by a favourite author and looking at setting, by thinking about Extraordinary Worlds creating their own world collectively and finally they have enriched their vocabulary, learnt new words and invented their own Extraordinary Words.
For examples of their work please visit the children’s portal on the main site.

3 of our drama facilitators reflect on their experiences below.

New ways of seeing old tales

Frank Cottrell Boyce stays that stories are there to help you understand and empathise with people you wouldn’t have understood or empathised with before, because we get to hear their perspective.

This term instead of bringing the stories off the page with drama, we will be encouraging your students to get into the page themselves, imagine how it would be to live like some of the characters in your set texts and them write their own story from that point of view. Throughout your sessions, our creative writers will introduce your students to new ways of approaching characterisation and plot setting. They will be encouraged to take risks with their writing and produce a short story. Often it can seem that great stories come easily and sometimes they do, but it is important for students to know that often there is a long editing process that goes into a great story or piece of writing and that they too should be reviewing and editing their work. By the end of the Verse vs. Verse creative writing sessions your students will hopefully have a truly unique piece of writing that they can be proud of!

highlights of PERSPECTIVES project plan

‘Everyone can be a writer…’

With the rise of the visual image and sound-bite text thanks to the media and internet, it has become much harder to engage children in creative writing. The challenge for teachers is how to harness this media and use it as an inspirational starting point. Children very much enjoy immersing themselves in imaginary worlds, however, a study done by the National Literacy Trust (2011) showed that 42% of students “have trouble deciding what to write”. Unsurprisingly therefore, 72% of students claimed “writing is more fun when you can chose the topic”.  It is therefore the Eastside practitioner’s goal to try and harness this imagination and willingness to write about topics that are relevant to the students and develop some strong and enthusiastic creative writers.

Verse vs. Verse aims to engage students with creative writing through bringing playfulness, imagination and a more diverse, free approach to writing. 450 students will work with our professional creative writers, who will set them fun yet challenging tasks aimed at helping the children find what type of creative writing they are really interested in and build their confidence. Creative writing can come from anything, a dream, song or a jingle, our creative writers will encourage your students to follow their imaginations and develop their writing.

What are the practicalities for the day?

* You should bring your whole class not just those performing. Please confirm with Eastside the number of pupils and adults attending by the 12^th June 2015.

*One team per class may enter the competition.

*Remember each team only has 3 minutes.

* The Slam will begin promptly at 11.00am at the Criterion Theatre, 218-223 Piccadilly, Piccadilly Circus, London. W1V 9LB on the 7th July 2015. Please aim to arrive promptly at 10.30 a.m to allow time be seated up. The event will finish at approximately 1.00pm.

* Don’t get lost- http://www.criterion-theatre.co.uk/theatre/location-map

* Organise your travel route in advance. You can get free tube travel if you have 1 adult to every 4 children (see the Under 11’s section) – http://www.tfl.gov.uk/fares-and-payments/travel-for-under-18s/travelling-with-children?intcmp=25255

How do we select pupils to take part in the slam?

This element of the project is entirely up to your school. A good idea is to hold a qualifying round in school prior to the Slam, so that your pupils are accustomed to competing. You might decide to ask the poet visiting your school to assist in making the decision or in judging your slam. Remember that the pupils will be judged on their presentation and performance as well as their poetry! However, you might decide that this is not appropriate for your school, and devise your own method of selection. This is also fine.

We would advise that you give the participating team a lot of support and time to practise as they will be standing up in front of 450 other students in a large theatre.

Do remember that the whole class will come to the slam not just the participating team. We want the whole class to get involved with audience participation, so if you do mock slams at school really encourage this!!

Poerty Slam Info Card

Please print off the info card and keep it for your reference.

Poetry Slam info card

‘at the age of 8 there is an amazing lack of fear’ Bobby Nayyar reflects on Verse vs. Verse

Bobby Nayyar worked with Norbury, Trent and St Paul’s. He reflects on his experiences here-

http://www.eastside.org.uk/news/featured_artist_the_month__april

Warm ups for introducing stories and reading

Story Machines

How excited are your class by reading? Bored or ecstatic everybody can get involved with this and all responses are fair and valuable!

To start get the class to go round in a circle and say a word that describes how they feel about reading- the first word that come into their head.

Now build on this with the word and action to go with the word.

Introduce the idea of the story machine whilst the class is still in a circle.

Have 4 volunteers create a story machine by joining together one after another making their movement and saying their word. They must have at least one part of their bodies touching each other. Get them to think about how they come into their machine and position themselves on different levels. Make sure they can hold their positions and do their actions faster and slower.

Split the class into groups and asking them to remember their words and actions. Get them to create machines that they will then perform back to the class.

Get the class to give feedback.

You could use something such as a tambourine to create a beat for the movement of the story machines.

 

What is a story?  Metaphors for good stories

Brainstorm metaphors for what a ‘good story’ is for them (write on post its) e.g.

a flying carpet (takes you to another world)

a fantasy holiday (escape)

a crazy clown (funny)

This can be an individual activity or you could extend the activity into group work.

In groups, devise the idea as a tableau. Perform to the class and see if they can guess the metaphor.

 From the Ordinary to the Extraordinary

Play some fill the space games to warm the class up. Get the pupils to walk around the room at different degrees of urgency. Make sure they are not bunching together- repeat the activity until they are properly spreading out.

Explain that in this space there are lots of hidden portals to different worlds that they have to find. Tell them their hidden portal will be something that they have never spotted before- a crack in the wall or a stain on the floor etc.

Give the class a few minutes to find their portal- make sure they are not bunching around the same ones.

Give the class independent thinking time to come up with their stories as to where their portal leads to. This can just be thinking time or they could write ideas on a post it.

If portals are written down students can go and read the other portal worlds or you could have some pupils tell the class about their portals and worlds.

Portal extension: If you get the students to write on a post it where their portal takes you. Then get them to pick a different portal and give them time to do some free writing and write a diary entry of what then found when they went through the portal.

If you want to tie the activity into the set text you could suggest that the portal leads you to a character or a setting. You could also extend the activity if it going well to why the portal has ended up in your school and what happens to you if you go through it?

Pass the Parcel

This is a good activity to build the tension and the excitement for the actual story.

At each unwrapping have quotes from the book- they can introduce the characters, be descriptions of characters or of settings or some action that doesn’t give too much away!

If you have music that works well and matches the feel of the book then you could use that as the pass the parcel music.

At the end it is the book that is wrapped up- read the first chapter (or appropriate) to finish the game.

Big Fat Lies

This is a funny game that students find exciting as they are usually not allowed to tell lies in the classroom.

How did you get to school this morning?

Model this by making up a fantastic story of what happened to you before you reached school this morning.

Split the pupils into pairs and give them two mins to make up their own stories. Encourage as much detail as possible and have a couple of the pupils tell their stories to the class at the end.

After two mins get them to swap and the other student makes up their story.