Student of the Month: December 2015
Victoria and Elizabeth were English queens who played a significant role in our Honors English studies this term. Students read Victorian literature (Jane Eyre) independently, while we studied Elizabethan literature (Romeo and Juliet) as a class. It’s a challenging schedule, and one of those who met the challenge was Maria Baker.
I could recognize her for any of the usual honor-student reasons -- excellent grades, pleasant demeanor, willing to learn, positive influence, etc. – and all of those would have been true of her. She’s a great student in all respects. But this award stems from a very specific experience, which requires me to explain a couple things up front:
1) I had seen Maria perform two diverse roles in the Shakespeare performance put on by the drama department in November: a dramatic noblewoman (maybe another queen?) and a comedic grave digger. The girl has range, I tell you!
2) The Honors English class Maria is in only has four boys in it. This means that when I wanted to assign parts for reading, we had a room full of Juliets but only four Romeos.
Of course, in Shakespeare’s day, women couldn’t perform on the stage, so most of the original Juliets were probably boys about the same age as the ones in this class (and, in fact, one of those boys was always perfectly willing to volunteer to be the nurse), but none of them EVER wanted to read the part of Romeo. So, because I had seen her handle two diverse Shakespearean characters before, one day I assigned Maria to be Romeo. It wasn’t something she volunteered to do, but I figured she could handle it.
And did she ever! The scene in question is a rather dramatic one that involves lots of high emotion. Romeo is desperate because he has been banished and can no longer be near his beloved Juliet. It is challenging to read Shakespeare with appropriate voice and tone if you’ve never seen the text before, but Maria’s reading was as fine as any professional I have ever heard. I mean she nailed it! The class got quiet as she went on, cold reading a long monologue but finding exactly the right voice by instinct. No lie: It gave me chills! Her “performance” made it easier for all of us to understand the scene more clearly.
It is for this very specific piece of excellent scholarship that I am naming her my student of the month.
I could recognize her for any of the usual honor-student reasons -- excellent grades, pleasant demeanor, willing to learn, positive influence, etc. – and all of those would have been true of her. She’s a great student in all respects. But this award stems from a very specific experience, which requires me to explain a couple things up front:
1) I had seen Maria perform two diverse roles in the Shakespeare performance put on by the drama department in November: a dramatic noblewoman (maybe another queen?) and a comedic grave digger. The girl has range, I tell you!
2) The Honors English class Maria is in only has four boys in it. This means that when I wanted to assign parts for reading, we had a room full of Juliets but only four Romeos.
Of course, in Shakespeare’s day, women couldn’t perform on the stage, so most of the original Juliets were probably boys about the same age as the ones in this class (and, in fact, one of those boys was always perfectly willing to volunteer to be the nurse), but none of them EVER wanted to read the part of Romeo. So, because I had seen her handle two diverse Shakespearean characters before, one day I assigned Maria to be Romeo. It wasn’t something she volunteered to do, but I figured she could handle it.
And did she ever! The scene in question is a rather dramatic one that involves lots of high emotion. Romeo is desperate because he has been banished and can no longer be near his beloved Juliet. It is challenging to read Shakespeare with appropriate voice and tone if you’ve never seen the text before, but Maria’s reading was as fine as any professional I have ever heard. I mean she nailed it! The class got quiet as she went on, cold reading a long monologue but finding exactly the right voice by instinct. No lie: It gave me chills! Her “performance” made it easier for all of us to understand the scene more clearly.
It is for this very specific piece of excellent scholarship that I am naming her my student of the month.
posted by MRT at 7:30 AM
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