Looking for Shakespeare
Shakespeare is appropriated by educators and others to serve their own purposes (Allen, 1991, p. 42–43), whether they be to teach the heritage of English literature, to perpetuate the examinations system, the Shakespeare industry and its Bardolatry, or, in this case, to promote adolescent response. The perspective from which Looking for Shakespeare begins is that of an inquiry into the layers of personal meaning in the play: Shakespeare’s “open text” challenges participants to reassess and transform their perceptions and their worldview (Allen, 1991, p. 45). A four–week intensive theatre workshop for adolescents which began at New York University in 1999, the program was conceived for inner–city adolescents who may not have had any theatre background to get to know and to perform a Shakespeare play. We adopted an integrated arts approach, employing improvisation, role play, visual art, creative writing, movement and music to explore and illuminate the text.
Waiting for Lear: Re-creations of Shakespeare’s Play Through Beckett at the Royal Shakespeare Company
Stage productions of King Lear at the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) have played a key role in reinventing the play for each new generation. Every production finds unique ways of presenting Lear, each of which adds new layers of meanings that can potentially shape our understanding of the play. In the 1960s, romanticized and naturalistic approaches that had governed the staging of the play were displaced by a modern conception of King Lear as Shakespeare’s Endgame. This article examines comparatively how dramatic forms emblematic of Samuel Beckett’s theatre were assimilated into three distinct RSC productions of King Lear, directed by Peter Brook (1962), Adrian Noble (1982) and Gregory Doran (2016). Beckett’s enduring influence on the play’s afterlife foregrounds both the practices of appropriation and transformation of previous texts that shape contemporary Shakespearean performance, and the dialogic interplay of textual and non-textual elements through which Shakespeare’s play has acquired meaning on the RSC stage. The appropriations of Beckettian patterns were shaped by the tensions between text and performance, and the battle between centripetal and centrifugal forces that intersect dialogically in the processes of meaning-making within Shakespearean performance.
Emotional and social intelligence assessment model for student character reinforcement
PurposeThe purpose of this study is to help teachers resolve the difficulties in assessing the students' characters through the development of valid, reliable, goodness-of-fit statistic instrument of emotional and social intelligence assessment for elementary school students.Design/methodology/approachThis study used a research and development model from Plomp with five phases, such as investigation, design, realization, testing and implementation. The research subjects were 345 students of class IV amongst 20 elementary schools in Yogyakarta. Data collection used questionnaires, documentation, interviews, Forum Group Discussion and an observation. Data analysis used descriptive analysis, Aiken's V, exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis formulae.FindingsThe research study helps solve the difficulties of teachers in assessing emotional and social intelligence, which have previously been in only one area of psychomotor. The design of emotional and social intelligence assessment instruments is made from three domains of character, namely, cognitive, affective and psychomotor. The form of the instrument is non-test in three variations. The construct of social and emotional intelligence assessment for a character reinforcement has met the validity, reliability and goodness-of-fit statistic.Research limitations/implicationsThis study explains that the Emotional and Social Intelligence (ESI) model is applied for measuring cognitive, affective and psychomotor in children. This study proves that the ESI model is a comprehensive assessment model for evaluating the children's soft skills, includes (1) personal abilities: the ability to make rational decisions, the ability to design the future and (2) social skills: the ability to work together and the ability to understand other people.Practical implicationsTeachers can measure and determine the condition of children's soft skills by operating the ESI model. Based on the knowledge of the correct soft skill conditions, the teacher can adjust the teaching materials and teaching methods that would improve the child's soft skills regarding to their respective conditions. Mastering these soft skills will affect the children's capability in facing the challenge in the upcoming society's life.Originality/valueThe novelty of this study is the design model of the emotional and social intelligence assessment instrument developed comprehensively and practically as it is created from three domains of character and three forms of non-test questions, so that the assessment is not mechanical, and easily practiced by users.