Registration | Log In

Search Grants | Fulfilled Grants | More About Find It, Fund It, Florida

Share

Please share this page to help in fulfilling this grant.

Goal

Through this grant, thirty of our freshman and sophomore students will be able to experience the live arts through a structured play performance of Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice” by Shakespeare at the Gulf Shore Playhouse in Naples between March 25th-April 15th, 2017. What a wonderful way to expose our students to theatre within their own community! 

What will be done with my students

Through funding of this grant, our students will engage in our Florida standards (LAFS) for language arts, writing, and performance standards and skills. One month before the performance, student will engross themselves in research and analysis of the various topics, themes, character analysis, stage directions, and plot components that will be presented through the live production. They will engage in the reading of parallel text (the old English side-by-side with modern-day English) passages of the play. These practice skills will be intertwined with general CCPS-adopted curricular materials and other outside reading materials I feel are appropriate to utilize and strengthen the students’ understanding of standards and skills so that there is a fluid and natural application and synthesis of learned skills from the lessons and performance and our regular curricular materials. After experiencing the live performance, students will reflect on and synthesize their experiences to create an end product (for example: an iMovie mini-play using connotative/denotative vocabulary, strong images, textual evidence to be acted out by, recorded, shared with, and analyzed by other students).  

Benefits to my students

Numerous studies have demonstrated a correlation between drama involvement and academic achievement. In addition to having higher standardized test scores than their peers who do not experience the arts, student who participate in drama often experience improved reading comprehension, maintain better attendance records, and stay generally more engaged in school than their non-arts counterparts. Schools with arts-integrated programs, even in low-income areas, report high academic achievement (American Alliance for Theatre and Education, 2016).
Since the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act, there has been a national focus on closing the "achievement gap” between students of varying abilities, socioeconomic status, and geographies among other factors that may directly or indirectly affect a student’s academic success. The arts, including drama, address this issue by catering to different styles of learning, and engaging students who might not otherwise take significant interest in academics. Additionally, research indicates that interaction with drama performances have a particularly positive effect on at-risk youth and students with learning disabilities.

DuPont, S. (2002). The effectiveness of creative drama as an instructional strategy to enhance the reading comprehension skills of remedial readers. Washington, DC: Arts Education Partnership.

Jensen, E. (2001). Arts with the brain in mind. Alexandria, Va., Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Kennedy, J. (2002). The effects of musical performance, rational emotive therapy and vicarious experience on the self-efficacy and self-esteem of juvenile delinquents and disadvantaged children. Washington, DC: Arts Education Partnership, 119-120.
 

Budget Narrative

Student ticket purchases are $20. The school will provide the school bus. $50 is for water on the bus ride to the performance. 

Items