Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Shakespeare Plus Autism


So my only actor friend (well at least that I know of...there might be some high school friend that acts but I clearly don't talk to them that often) shared this article on Facebook [yes you Katie :)] The article is called "The connection between Shakespeare and autism" And we taught Shakespeare together once for a MAGNIFICENT summer at Cedar Ridge Academy.  So of course I clicked on it because I want to know what is out there. This is actually quite the interesting article.
Our school does not teach highly autistic students, but we do see students on the other end of the autism spectrum (like NLD and Asprerger's).  As this article points out, with these students you are not going to immediately think of Shakespeare. But I have seen students that would have NEVER tackled Shakespeare on their own, take it and run with it.  They immerse themselves in the language and let them try it out and guess what they are getting at--and suddenly they are not scared and they can handle it.  


So go check out the article...what Shakespeare play would you try with students that aren't great with language?  Hmm....what about with ESL?

Thank you to shakespeare.mit.edu for the picture which is also where I get my copies of plays when I do it in class.  Printing them for a small class like mine is cheaper than buying books.

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