I have used RSC rehearsal room approaches with my classes for some years now, I am confident that these methods improve student enjoyment and engagement with Shakespeare texts; however, it is also important to me that the methods that I am using will help raise student attainment.

A common comment from colleagues is that they feel they do not ‘have time’ to explore Shakespeare in a more practical way because they need to focus on preparation for written assessments. These methods are often viewed as ‘fun’, additional activities, rather than actually contributing to the students’ written assessment preparation. I wanted to test whether students could make equal or more progress by studying a text through RSC rehearsal methods, rather than more traditional classroom teaching.

RESEARCH QUESTION

I decided to conduct my observations in my current Year 7 class. They were due to study The Tempest and were relatively new to Shakespeare. I had observed that common issues in their written work were their ability to select appropriate quotations to support their ideas and to make inferences about characters and their relationships. As part of the advanced course with the RSC I undertook a research project about using rehearsal room approaches in my classroom. I focused on whether these skills could be improved by the use of rehearsal room approaches observing students who represent the range of abilities at my school.

Once the students had completed their written assessment on The Tempest, I analysed the marks for the whole class and discovered that 83% of the students had improved their reading mark, 4% remained on the same mark and 13% received a lower mark than last time. This was significantly better than expected, as my past students have typically found the Shakespeare assessment challenging.

I compared this data to that of a different class in the same year group, who had not used rehearsal room approaches. In this class, only 25% of the students improved their mark, with 30% staying the same and 45% receiving a lower mark in this assessment than their last. By using rehearsal room approaches, my class had not just made equal progress to their peers but had actually made more progress.

CHOOSING PURPOSFUL QUOTATIONS

One crucial aspect of analytical writing that I hoped would be improved through the use of rehearsal room techniques was the students’ ability to select purposeful quotations to support their answers. Previously, some of the students had selected quotations that did not match their ideas, quotations that offered little scope for analysis.

This time, in their final written assessment, every student in the class managed to support their ideas with at least one relevant and well-chosen quotation, with many students identifying several apt quotations. All these quotations were good choices within the extract from the assessment, as they offered different perspectives on the selected characters. There were far fewer examples of students choosing quotations that they had little to write about and some very interesting points made about Prospero’s character and his relationship with Ariel.

Although I believe that the main benefit of RSC approaches was helping students to analyse these quotations in depth, certain activities did seem to help with the actual selection of quotations to analyse in the first place. For example, a student commented that when trying to play Prospero as angry, he had been unable to say the line “my charms I’ll break, their senses I’ll restore”. He stated that this might therefore be the moment where Prospero’s attitude changes in this scene. This student then used that quotation in his essay to support an idea about Prospero’s changing emotions.

As well as helping the student to understand the character development, the rehearsal-based activities actually helped the student to pinpoint the best line to support his idea and he was able to remember the quotation during the written assessment.

CHARACTER ANALYSIS

I wanted to see whether students improved their analysis by being able to explore characters and their relationships on a deeper level. Previously, some students in the class had made very limited comments and interpreted language very literally, showing a lack of understanding. After using rehearsal room activities and acting as the characters students were able to make very perceptive points about Ariel and Prospero’s relationship, and Prospero’s character.

The improvement was particularly noticeable in the work of the lower and middle ability students. One student in particular demonstrated clear improvements in terms of the quality of his responses and overall engagement with the text. In his written work, he was able to choose some relevant quotations, make sensible points and link his comments about Prospero in the extract to his understanding of the character in the wider play.

In the middle-ability work, the most noticeable improvement was that students made much more perceptive points about the characters and their relationship than they had in previous work. One student explored how this reflected the power dynamic of Prospero and Ariel in the extract. This was a very significant improvement for this student, who previously had simply paraphrased or repeated quotations when writing about texts, with very short and limited comments. They made a perceptive point about how asking for advice suggests a closeness between them.

Another feature of the middle-ability work was an improved engagement with the language of their chosen quotations and their ability to discuss the significance of the imperative verbs used by Prospero:

Prospero isn’t very kind at this point in the play as he says phrases like “Go, charge my goblins” or “Follow and do me service” … Shakespeare has made Prospero say imperative verbs which makes Ariel look like they have a lower ranking but in reality they both hold immense power.

In an end-of-unit survey a student reflected on how the drama activities had helped her to prepare for the written assessment.

MORE THAN JUST FUN ACTIVITIES

My research has clearly demonstrated that the use of rehearsal room approaches has not only made studying The Tempest enjoyable for the students but has also helped them to produce more detailed and insightful analysis. Students reported that the activities helped them to engage with the characters, which was clearly reflected in the quality of their written work. This is particularly true for lower and middle ability students who demonstrated a much more secure understanding of characters and relationships than they had in their previous assessment.

I was pleasantly surprised that the improvement in their marks was not only equal to but actually better than another class in the same year group, showing that these methods are more than just ‘fun’ activities to offer the students, they can actually significantly improve the written work that is produced.