TEACHING LITERATURE THROUGH THEATRICAL PLAY

There has been an explosion of interest over the last decade in the use of digital games in educational contexts (Gee, 2007; Salen, 2008; Schrier, 2014), but games and playful performance practices have long been a standard part of the teaching of literature (Chisolme, 2016; Fennessey, 2006; Grant et al., 2008). In particular, scholars and practitioners have published numerous studies of the effectiveness of what I would term “theater games pedagogy” for the teaching of Shakespeare (Banks, 2014; Cohen, 2007; Edminston & McKibben, 2011; Rocklin, 2005; Winston, 2015). The extensive and longstanding investment in ludic strategies for teaching Shakespeare is not surprising given that Shakespeare’s dramas are, after all, plays and thus deeply connected historically and theoretically to ludic culture (Bloom, 2018). But teachers are especially drawn theater games pedagogy because Shakespeare intimidates and/or bores many students—and sometimes their teachers, too (Blocksridge, 2003; Cohen, 2007; Haddon, 2009). With Shakespeare being the only named author in the English Language Arts curriculum for both the Common Core in the U.S. and the National Curriculum in the UK, the stakes of student disengagement are high. But what is gained and what is lost in theater game pedagogy?