To help bring literature and the arts to life and make them relevant to students, Odessa High School teachers Cheryl Sellars and Chyree LeMaster have been awarded a $1,744.34 Education Foundation grant to stage an event called Rock the Renaissance.
Sellars is an advanced academic English 4 instructor and LeMaster is the theater teacher and fine arts department chair.
“This is the idea that literature doesn’t exist in a vacuum and our students read Shakespeare every year and they don’t place him in his time period with the culture with the different things that are happening in the Renaissance. I think it’s very important that they see the whole picture, not just that little fragment of ‘Yeah, that’s a Shakespearean play,’ which we find boring. We’re going to try to bring the time period to life for them,” Sellars said.
The idea, she said, is for students to learn something through experience; not by reading, viewing a video or a PowerPoint. They will learn about stagecraft, which would have been essential in Shakespeare’s time, a little bit about the language, the culture, stage fighting and how people dressed.
They will also learn about Shakespeare’s time period, the music and the art.
Rock the Renaissance will be held all day Nov. 18 at the Boys Gym at OHS. It will involve about 1,200 people.
The English 4 students will be reading Shakespeare at the time.
Before the event, Sellars said students will view a Shakespeare production at the Globe Theater.
LeMaster said there will be 10 different stations, each with a focus. A student will help out with each one and teach students what they’ve learned.
One area will be staging or stage combat, and others will be music and art and more.
“Students will have passports that they get stamped from each center as they participate in it,” Sellars said.
“It’s a little bit of a choose your own adventure, as well. They get to pick which centers that they’re going to go to. They won’t be able to get to all of them during the period, but they get to pick the ones they want to go to and there’s a costuming center, as well. So lots of different things,” LeMaster said.
It’s all designed to put them into the time period to make the history relevant to the production and get them a little more familiar with the language, Sellars said.
She added that they are going to have a Shakespearean insult booth. LeMaster said there is a Shakespeare insult generator which can be found on your computer or phone.
“We have these little booklets and you can change the words and you learn a word and you learn what it meant and now you’re able to put those words together to create … a fantastic insult,” LeMaster said. “Of course, we keep it clean.”
Sellars said it changes the vocabulary of the school for a little bit.
Sellars said they might be brave and try to do this every year, but it wouldn’t be possible without funding from the Education Foundation.
“They purchased the costumes for us. They’ve given us the ability to design the passports, to have the … material for the mock stage fighting and so forth. Without their underwriting this, it wouldn’t be possible,” Sellars said.
She added that if they are going to do this annually, this will be the experimental year to see how it works.
“Putting 1,200 kids through is a large number. The other thing is we wanted to involve the arts in it. Most students do not see literature as a form of art. They just see it as words on a page and I want them to appreciate the fact that it is an art to write,” Sellars said.
She said she and LeMaster had toyed with the idea for a while. When Foundation Director Celeste Potter sent out an email giving the due date for grant applications, Sellars and LeMaster set to work on a shared document since they were in different cities. Mauricio Marquez, who was OHS principal at the time, let the teachers communicate with him and signed off on their application. Marquez is now an executive director of leadership with ECISD.
“All three of us were in different places trying to work on this. It was a little crazy, but we did it,” Sellars said.
One of the big things that’s tested on the Advanced Placement literature exam is drama and theater.
“Our students have very little background. In fact, we did a survey of how many have ever seen a live production. You might be surprised that maybe about 10% of our kids have ever seen a lot of theater production, so they have no concept of actually what goes on in a theater and most of the 10% that I have also have Ms. LeMaster and that’s the difference between them experiencing this or not,” Sellars said.
“Imagine going all the way through school and never seeing a live production. This bothers me. When I’m trying to teach drama in class, they don’t see the staging. They can’t visualize what is happening. This makes it very difficult for them to write about, so by providing these experiences, by doing this type of thing, by talking about the staging, I’m hoping that my students will have greater success on the AP exam.”
“But at the same time, I want the other English students that are not AP (Advanced Placement) to have that same type of experience so that the words come to life; that they have more meaning on the page, because we always read plays, but we don’t attend them,” Sellars added.
Sellars and LeMaster would both encourage teachers to apply for Education Foundation grants.
“It makes them (students) active and a part of their education rather than passive. Thanks so much to the Education Foundation for helping us,” LeMaster said.
Sellars added that this will open up a whole new experience for students that wouldn’t be possible without the Education Foundation.
”It also provides memories and anything that we do that provides memories is more impactful to their education. So they will remember the Renaissance,” Sellars said.
