#spatial ltieracy

Is there a more complete multimodal text readily available in our classrooms today than Shakespeare? 

As many of you know, my research is generally focused on comics as sponsors of multimodal literacy skills. I often advocate for comics’ ability to bring to the front of our mind oft-unacknowledged literacies (such as spatial, gestural, temporal, colour, and even parallel literacies as it relates to the iconic & linguistic registers), yet many teachers today fail to recognize the multimodal opportunities presented by the canonical works of Shakespeare himself.

In my experiences, Shakespeare is often taught today by providing the play text to students and having the class read together or have a CD recite the text for the class. 

Now, I’m not saying this is without value; there are obviously connections to oral communication and aural literacy built into this type of lesson. I don’t suggest that we need to abandon it all together, but what I am suggesting is that by doing only this, we’re doing a major disservice to not only our students’ needs, but also diminishing the power of a fantastic sponsorship tool.

I am not the first teacher to point out that Shakespeare’s plays were never intended to be read out of a printed book. 

His work needs to be LIVED! It needs to be EXPERIENCED! And they must be seen as they were intended to be seen; on stage.

This isn’t always possible in the “live” sense... but in our 21st Century Classroom, fully equipped with multimedia capabilities, finding recordings of staged versions of Shakespeare’s greatest works is easier than ever.

ON DEMAND versions of staged performances are available at both The Globe Theatre and The Stratford Festival websites, there are countless DVD recordings of staged performances, and YouTube has countless excerpts available for students perusal!

Shakespeare’s plays, and drama more generally, can better aid our students as they work towards the acquisition of many literacy skills, but as to the reason why staged versions are most appropriate to study in class, I want to focus on how they sponsor spatial and gestural literacy specifically. 

In terms of spatial literacy sponsorship, a staged production offers students a multitude of analysis possibilities. A stage, as physical space, has only a finite amount of area that can be used in design. As such, designers must maximize the allotted area in order to both communicate their intentions, as well as serve the practical function of a set.

As students explore different productions, they might consider why the stage was dressed as it is? What does it communicate and why? Does it serve a practical function? A metaphorical one? Being able to discuss the physical space and how it impacts the world around us is the corner stone of spatial literacy.

Through this exploration, they would also be forced to engage with spatial reasoning (a student’s recognition of three-dimensional objects in space and the conclusions that they draw from them), which is of course another vital part of spatial literacy. Assignments like sketching a set design and modelling scene-a-rama or diorama from a shoebox or other material would be an excellent culminating activity to evaluate the development of this type of literacy:

Gestural literacy is one that is almost easier to work with. As multiple staged productions are shown to our students, we can take the time to reflect on important moments within the play. Hamlet’s “To Be or Not To Be” speech might be scaffolded through the following: 1) Read and discuss the soliloquy out of context, 2) Read Act III, Scene I of Hamlet together as a class (re-inserting it into it’s context), 3) Watch one actor’s staged performance, 4) Discuss with the students what they saw (ask how his physical actions, facial features, bodily movements, motions across the space, etc. impacted the way that he communicated the message of the soliloquy), 5) Watch another, 6) Maybe even another... Ultimately, this can lead to a reflection or entire class discussion about the way that actors make choices in their portrayals that impact not only the soliloquy that they are speaking, but also the character as a whole. 

What I’m hoping to express here, is that there is so much more to be accomplished with Shakespeare than is currently being done. The benefit of putting aside the “old methods” of read-aloud not only provide better learning opportunities for our students, but will also reduce the time in which it takes to teach a Shakespearean text. A 4-week unit might go down to only a 2-week one, leaving more time in the semester to introduce other valuable texts. I would wager that student engagement with the source material would increase as well.

By adapting our current models for teaching Shakespeare into one more specifically focused on the performance itself, students are able to not only benefit from the skills that they would learn by listening to the it read aloud in class, but also enhance it with these other literacies that would be absent in the other model. It seems to me time to recognize that the Bard knows best... Let’s teach his texts, as they were meant to be experienced.

But that’s just me thinking out loud...

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