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Goal

Through this grant, our students will engage in the reading and analysis of "The Miracle Worker" play about Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan. Twenty-five students will then be able to experience the live arts through a structured performance of “The Miracle Worker” presented by the Florida Repertory Theatre in February and March of 2018. This timeless American classic tells the inspiring true story of how a determined teacher was able to save young Helen Keller from her isolated silence. Just before the turn of the 20th century, desperate for help, the Keller Family hires a young woman to help their blind and mute daughter learn to communicate with the outside world. Annie Sullivan sees that Helen is more than a spoiled and violent child trapped behind a wall, and against tremendous odds, she frees Helen’s spirit and opens her mind. Made famous by the film starring Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke, The Miracle Worker, is a moving, inspirational, and electrifying story of perseverance, friendship, and hope.
The historic, linguistic, and cultural significance of the play provides plenty of opportunity for a host of topics for classroom discussion, research, speech, essays, and projects, all in line with our Florida Language Arts standards. 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, all students 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 text, cinematic presentation, and the theatre production. 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. All students will then view and analyze the film performance of the play, comparing and contrasting the literary version to the cinematic version. Then, twenty-five of our students (those students who engaged in and produced the best iMovie representations as judged by their student peers and assessed according to a grading rubric) will experience the live performance of the play as well. Students will reflect on and synthesize their experiences to create an end product (for example: a mini-play script 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, students 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

This grant allows all students to engage in the reading, analysis, and viewing of "The Miracle Worker." These reading materials (the 30 script copies) will be shared with other teachers and grade levels at Golden Gate High School year after year. The twenty-five students who attend the live performance will have additional reflection requirements to engage in and to heighten their understanding of the text and the life performance. 

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