As part of their unit of study in class with English teacher Jennifer Manley, students have been reading and analyzing Hamlet. The class emphasizes exploration of literature and the development of expository and creative writing skills. For their final class assessment, students were tasked with creating their own promptbook of a scene from Act IV or Act V. A promptbook is a copy of a script that has been cut and/or annotated by the director and contains the information necessary to create a theatrical production.

To prepare for the assessment and performance, students were broken into small groups where they worked together on what scene to adapt using the practices they learned throughout the unit. Once selected, they moved collaboratively through a complex process of reading, re-reading, editing, imagining, rehearsing, and defending using the text as the source for how to edit and stage the scene.

“The promptbook assignment gives students the opportunity to learn how to deeply read, interpret, and act out a complex scene from the play,” said Ms. Manley. “This is accomplished through choral reading, questioning, making inferences, cutting lines, and playing with movement, stress, and tone. They put the play on its feet—Shakespeare should never be read at a desk!“

Prior to the stage performance, students spent class time finalizing the staging of the scene, what gestures and actions should be made along with the dialogue, how lines should be delivered, and what to cut. Ms. Manley advised the students to think deeply and critically about their chosen scene and ask other group members questions relating to character lines and its importance in the play. The final version of the promptbook included documentation of all the changes and a defense of the directorial decisions, specifically explaining why they made the choices and articulating their analysis of the text. Students were to also share how the process of preparing this performance shaped new or different understandings of the play.

With Ms. Manley in the audience, the students gathered in their groups for their stage performance. The innovative performance details included shifting the setting to the 1990s and incorporating gold-colored props to a dramatic staging with music and a comedic and colorful staging. For the assessment grading, the students were evaluated on different components reflective of the overall project guideline. The components included students demonstrating their understanding of the characters and what they are saying/wanting; does the defense summarize the scene clearly, concisely, and accurately; does the defense describe how this process shapes a new and different understanding of the play; does the defense comment on the scene’s importance in the overall play and our world today; and other questions.