First off, thank you ever so much to my friends Shannon Lowry and Kathie Sever at their collaborative craft blog — Back and Forth Project.
Today, their Friend Friday post features our Crown Sonnet project!
You can find a re-telling of our story right up top, and then stay to explore the back posts. Back and Forth is a really exciting concept, borne of a children’s book project but exploded open into discussions of creativity and connecting with one another via art.
Thanks, gals, for including us!
Second, I just have to try to describe to you what it was like seeing my 3rd grader and her buddies performing scenes from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night yesterday. Let’s start with the presumption that there’s no way I can do it justice.
I’m serious, folks.
Here’s the deal.
At our school, the 3rd and 4th graders are lucky enough to study Shakespeare through performance, thanks to an amazing outreach program. (They’ve recently been working on Comedy of Errors and even I have some of Egeon’s lines memorized.)
The man who runs the program happens to be a dad at our school, so this year he developed an afterschool master class for those kids who just couldn’t get enough of fair William. Count my tall one among those.
At first it was hard. Really hard.
“I love acting, but not memorizing,” my girl said.
The language was, well, rather foreign.
But then, in spite of themselves, they started absorbing it. The whole lot of ’em.
And the results were stunning.
As we gathered in the library yesterday afternoon, the kids donned their wigs and vests and velvet caps.
And then, began.
They knew all of their lines.
All. Of. Them.
And the ones that were supposed to be funny?
They were hilarious!
The ones that were meant to be sarcastic?
They were biting!
The ones that were written to be beautiful?
They were staggering!
I didn’t look to see but I’m pretty certain I’m not the only one who cried.
There was something so moving about our 9- & 10- & 11-year-olds holding this poetry in their mouths and in their bodies.
Actually, more than just hold.
They held and truly felt.
They embodied.
Today, I’m awash in gratitude for the UT Shakespeare at Winedale program, and their teacher — the beloved Mr. S. And for our school librarian and, oh heck, William Shakespeare for starting the whole darn thing…
So here, for your reading pleasure, is one of my daughter’s bits as Viola from Twelfth Night.
Read it aloud, just for kicks:
Most radiant, exquisite, and unmatchable beauty,–I pray you,
tell me if this be the lady of the house, for I never saw her: I
would be loath to cast away my speech; for, besides that it is
excellently well penned, I have taken great pains to con it. Good
beauties, let me sustain no scorn; I am very comptible, even to
the least sinister usage.
That is just beautiful! It must have been heart-stopping to hear your daughter and her classmates recite. A once in a life time thrill. Thanks for sharing it with us. AND thanks for putting our Sonnet Crown at the back and forth blog! Woo Hoo!
I’m tearing up hearing about this! How beautiful. What a phenomenal program.
3rd graders doing Shakespeare? I am in awe. What a fabulous program.
And yeah you on the Crown Sonnet project. That just blew me away!
TadMack says:
Oh, WOW. Young thespians, unite!!
Oh! I love Shakespeare! It must have been incredible to see your daughter and her classmates embrace his work.
Happy Mother’s Day!
Oh how I wish I could’ve seen that. I so love Twelfth Night. And the thought of seeing/hearing kids do it just blows me clean away.
William S in Elementary
Liz,
You were NOT the only one crying and laughing and smiling with pride. It truly was amazing to see our children actually “get it” at such a young age. I wish this could happen everywhere, please be inspired and try to spread the fever everywhere….
And what a great blog Shannon and Kathie have!
jules
D’oh! My first comment didn’t make it. It was along these hyperbolic (but totally sincere) lines —
ABSOLUTE BRILLIANCE to have third graders recite Shakespeare and why doesn’t EVERYONE do this? Kudos to that teacher!
Jules
Oh, how fabulous. And don’t you think it’s in their bones now? They own Shakespeare for life.
I think I’ve said this before, but I think a trip to the Alabama Shakespeare Festival is in order. They have wonderful kids’ programs.
Wow. To have Shakespeare as a part of your living and breathing self at such a young age. This will surely be a life-changing poetry experience for all of those kids, but especially for yours because you understand the value of it. Because you, too, live and breathe poetry.