Play

Play is a helpful learning tool. In my classroom the students are encouraged to play, though I don't call it that. When we do a lesson on poetry, I show them a you tube video that explains onomatopoeia (which I have included, though I did not create it), and it encourages them to "play" with how to create their own visualizations of the definitions. I have had students create a talk show in which the host interviews each type of comma, which makes grammar a little more interesting. They have created parodies of nursery rhymes in which Jack and Pete go down the street to get more minutes on their iPhone. They have me sitting on a wall falling in to a pile of stickers and glitter - they think that I'm a stickers and glitter kind of teacher because my room is color coordinated, and each class has a particular color associated with them. They are laughing as they come in and tell me, "Last night was such a debacle! I left my note cards at home and am now faced with such a conundrum!" Using two of our vocabulary words in a joking way, but that also tells me that they have learned them. I make my classroom a place where they can learn and grow, but are comfortable trying out new things.
When it comes to the idea of play as associated with the topic of good versus evil, this is addressed in a variety of ways. As we complete Beowulf, the students first create a storyboard to explain and depict the first battle between Beowulf and Grendel. After the second battle, they create a visual representation of a selection of text. In other words, they must find a way to explain the 15-20 lines of text in a visual way - pictures, symbols, and so on. After the third and final battle, they are asked to summarize - ok, so the last one is not a form of play, but the final assessment is. The class is then split in to groups and they are each given one of the major battles - their task is recreate the battle in a new setting. They first pull out the sections of the story that directly relate the characteristics of an epic that they have learned, then they are given a time period in which they must retell the story. I have had students "roll up" on "H-Block" in downtown Detroit circa 1995 in colorful wind suits, as opposed to rowing up to Denmark in a boat and marching up to Heorot in the Anglo-Saxon Period. They have created a Twinkie monster accidentally in a lab who then feels as if he is not a part of society and then goes on a rampage instead of Grendel being a descendant of Cain and despising the humanity he cannot be a part of. The list goes on, but the assignment is fun for them, and the skits are great, and it shows me that they can learn the main ideas of an Anglo-Saxon Epic and then change them, move beyond the realm of rote memorization and apply the characteristics of an epic in a new way.
Play associated with good and evil is also put to work during the instruction of Hamlet. The students are exposed to the play in three ways: They read it, they watch it, then they perform it. Their favorite act is of course, Act Five, Scene Two in which mass chaos ensues at a duel and all the characters die. I have fake swords and wigs and chalices, they have a great time, and they use and understand Shakespearean language.
There are many ways to use play in the classroom, and in life. It is something that can expand the world beyond the normal realm, just as painting with bacteria can be an outlet for some, using what we see in our everyday lives in a new and interesting way can be an avenue to a world we never knew existed. In the case of my students, it shows many of them that they can enjoy Shakespeare. While knowing how to read Shakespeare is not a life skill, knowing that you can do something that you never thought you could most definitely is. Play in the classroom gets the students to attempt things they never would have dreamed of in a way that does not make them feel pressured.