"Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater." -Gail Godwin

Dr. Irene Nunnari is a former Education Professor of Mount Saint Mary College in Newburgh, NY. She received her undergraduate from Marywood University, two Masters degrees, one from Villanova University and another from The State University of New York at New Paltz. Later she completed her Doctorate at NYU. Dr. Nunnari is a big advocate for theater in the classroom. She says that theater is part of teaching. There are hundreds of students who will tell you today that Dr. Nunnari made Shakespeare the most exciting class they participated in at the Mount. That is quite the accomplishment!

Dr. Irene Nunnari 

The most important thing I got out of this IROC presentation was, performance makes students become close readers. Below I will tell you about some of the activities Dr. Nunnari used to use in her classes to engage her students in actively learning.

Airport- developed by Paul Sills, former director of Chicago's Second City Troupe
Directions: Create a runway by clearing a space in the center of the classroom. Students can watch from the sidelines. The space is then filled with books, shoes, pencils, a wate basket, etc. One student is a pilot (blindfolded because weather conditions have cut off visibility and piolt's communication with the tower) Another student is an air traffic controller who stands at the end of the runway, skirting the obstacles. Any touch is an unsafe landing and another "team" must try to accomplish it wthout incident.

*Airport contains within it every element of theatre, including a rehearsal process form. 

I volunteered to perform the above activity, but unfortunately my team member and I failed to make a safe landing. We were group 2 and it took 3 times to get it right. This is a great activity to teach your students about communication! When speaking or writing, you must be very precise and make sure you leave out no details. This activity will assist with the process giving students a visual of how things need to be done.

 

Pilot (me)

The Ten Minute Hamlet - Folger Shakespeare Library

Students form groups and are given key quotes from the play to "act out" in voice, song or action. A narrator provides continuity and makes such statements as "The Ghost of King Hamlet has appeared and terrified everyone, especially Horatio, who SAYS"

Group 1 which has been assigned the following quote...jumps up and acts out:

"This bodes some strange eruption in our state." The "play" continues until the necessary plot details have been described and corresponding quotes have been performed."

Resources:
dramaintheclassroom.org
nationalartstandards.org
www.folger.edu (The Folger Shakespeare Library)
www.pbs.org/shakespeare
www.aate.com (American Alliance for Theatre and Education)

Thank you Dr. Nunnari for presenting your outstanding work. I cannot wait to put it into practice!