John's Check-In #4 & #5

5/3/11

We started talking this week with our classes about our upcoming summer production of Midsummer Nights Dream and the opportunity for them to Apprentice. One of our big goals this year is the expansion of the Apprentice Company to not just include acting but also design, stage management and production opportunities. New Brunswick High School students will be working alongside our production staff on the main-stage show giving them working experience in set, costume, and makeup design, marketing and production management.

5/10/11

One of the most beneficial things in teaching a new topic or concept is finding ways to present the material in as many creative ways as possible. This concept is not of course a new one, but is consistently a challenging one. Jen and I are always playfully kidding each other because we have different teaching techniques. I love visuals. I love writing things out and creating maps and charts and illustrating things on the board. Jen loves auditory learning. She likes discussion and telling the story with metaphor and context. We have found an interesting dynamic when we teach and because of our own preferences we seem to cover a topic with a 360 view. Mr. Thornburg affectionately calls it the Jen and John Show and our students seem to get a kick out of the animation we bring to our plot descriptions.

We started working on midsummer nights this week with our students in preparation for our production this summer. We covered the entire plot line and characters so everyone in the class was able to start with the same foundation. I had a full color coordinated character flow chart on the dry erase board while Jen talked about why characters behaved and talked in certain ways. I focused on the complexity of the plot and Jen talked about the poetry of the language.

The next day our students came back and recounted for us the previous days lesson. It was fascinating watching and listening to them as they brought the play to life for us. One student remembered the complexity of the lovers’ pairings because of the how it was outlined on the board. Another student recalled the argument between Oberon and Titania because of the powerful descriptions of the natural world at war had stuck with her.