Integrating Theater and Literature

Jenna Bates with a group of 11th grade English Language Arts students at Bio-Med Science Academy.

Jenna Bates has taught high school English Language Arts for 17 years, but this year her class will be very different.  As in the past, her juniors will read and analyze Medea, Hamlet, A Streetcar Named Desire, and The Crucible. And as usual, they will discuss and write about the plot, theme, character development, and literary styles inherent in each piece. What will be new, says Ms. Bates, “is the students will literally get their hands dirty with the material.”

Ms. Bates is in her second year teaching at Bio-Med Science Academy, a public independent STEM school in Rootstown. Unlike the more traditional school she came from, Bio-Med emphasizes interdisciplinary, project-based learning in all classes.

“We have complete license here to create our own curriculum,” explains Ms. Bates, who is extremely excited about the opportunity to integrate the study of literature with as many courses as possible. “We really are encouraged not to focus just on math and science, but to think creatively.”

Inspiration for a project she designed with a Grant-to-Educators from the Jennings Foundation came to her last spring while watching Game of Thrones. “After each airing, HBO offered an additional show that explained how each episode was put together,” she explains. “As I watched these, I realized that movie-making and theater are incredibly interdisciplinary endeavors.” From the math and engineering required to design and build sets to the art necessary to create costumes and props to the critical writing skills needed to write the scripts, she explains, every class her students take is somehow relevant to the theater.

This “epiphany” led her to center a current 11th grade ELA class around theater, collaborating with other teachers on her team as much as possible. Her idea was to provide a condensed survey of theater using a guiding question about the nature of good and evil as a thematic thread in the literature they would study. She would then engage students in independent, hands-on activities that would lead to authentic learning experiences. 

For example, early in the school year when studying Euripedes’ Medea, Ms. Bates challenged students to fashion paper mache masks representing a character from the play. Realistic or symbolic, the masks were to portray specific traits revealed through an individual’s actions throughout the tragedy. Ms. Bates collaborated with the art teacher who taught students how to create with paper mache and also explained the history of mask making and the role it has played in various cultures throughout time. Students were required to incorporate one of these cultural motifs in their design. 

Once the masks were completed, students presented their artwork to the class defending the aesthetic choices they made to illustrate their characters. To incorporate a written assignment, Ms. Bates required them to create gallery descriptions of their work. The project was an authentic tie-in to the study of Medea, Mrs. Bates explains, because masks were an essential element of ancient Greek theater.

Ms. Bates encourages independent, student-led learning, which she believes leads to a more rigorous curriculum.

“All the masks are amazing,” says Ms. Bates, describing the 70 or so unique pieces students created, which she has displayed on shelves in the school’s Creative Commons. “They really enjoyed the activity; and they definitely learned more deeply because of it.

“I had to look in depth into the text to create my mask,” explains one student, who chose to illustrate the Princess, a character who does not have a name nor any dialogue in Medea but whose personality is revealed as others talk about her. “She has this façade of innocence, but all through the play she has a darker side, too. To make the physical piece I had to think about symbolism – the white and the black representing the good and the evil.

“The hands-on projects,” she adds, “also allow me to take the ideas swirling around in my head and make them real.”

A variety of masks portray the students’ different interpretations of characters in the ancient Greek tragedy, Medea.

“The hands-on projects allow me to take ideas swirling around in my head and make them real.”

This student chose to create a mask that illustrates the two-faced nature of Medea. It morphs from the “normal” to the monstrous sides of her personality.

As the school year continues, Ms. Bates has plans for similar authentic integrated assignments. Second semester, students will learn about Elizabethan theater as they study Hamlet. Their task will be to design and build a set that includes specific architectural elements, a parabola, and a weight-bearing component. Accomplishing the assignment will require collaboration with the art, math, and physics teachers. Students will also create a budget for the project, a skill that will be integrated with a class all 11th graders take called “College, Career, and Finance.” In the spring, when studying A Streetcar Named Desire, Ms. Bates intends to focus on costume design and its relevance to theatrical production.

“This curriculum is all new to me,” states Ms. Bates, although she has had experience as a drama teacher in the past. “These are all plays I’ve taught before, so I know them really well. I’m just thinking about them in very different ways.

“My wish for the students is that they will make real world interdisciplinary connections in their learning,” she continues.  “By using theater as a foundation, I am confident they will not only gain a new appreciation for the art of theater and literature but also an understanding of how all of their assigned classes can work together in an organic way.”