Eighth Graders Bring Shakespeare Play To Life At Bronxville Union Free School District

Press release from the Bronxville Union Free School District:

May 21, 2021

Bronxville Middle School eighth graders – who have been reading William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” in their English language arts classes – are acting out scenes from the play to comprehend the meaning behind the author’s words.

During virtual workshops, the students worked with actors from the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, a nonprofit professional theater company, to build their understanding through the power of gesture, sound and space. As a culminating activity, the eighth graders will perform a speech from the play after having analyzed the language in a variety of activities.

“Using acting tools and strategies, artist educators are helping bring the words on the page to life and teaching students a variety of tools they can use when learning to act their speech,” English teacher Alyssa Dioguardi said.

Throughout the experience, the students have been doing a combination of reading, acting and watching the play. In class, they’ve have been focusing on comprehension and language analysis to grasp the language of the play.

This press release was produced by the Bronxville Union Free School District. The views expressed are the author's own.