By Lauren Schaller and Margaret Fikany both ’13 | Staff Writers

To familiarize students with Shakespeare’s work, actors from Stratford’s Shakespeare Festival visited Grosse Pointe South High School on Tuesday, Nov. 13.

Freshmen English, British Literature, Aspects of Acting and AP Literature were the participating classes in these activities, Aspects of Acting and British Literature teacher Meaghan Dunham said.

With Freshmen English working with “Romeo and Juliet”, British Literature with “Hamlet”, AP Literature with “King Lear” and Acting Class with a variety of Shakespeare’s work, these activities made the students more well-informed about their studies.

“The actors taught us how to interpret Shakespeare’s language and told us how he used important words to get his point across,” said Honors Freshmen English student Eva Lianos.

The students were able to learn different material in a totally new form, Dunham said. This was exciting because kinesthetic learners could learn everything from a new angle.

“It’s not instinctive for teachers to teach like this,” said Dunham. “They teach us to teach them in a way that will help the students learn in the best and most effective way.”

The activities focused on strengthening the students’ understanding of Shakespearean language and made them more comfortable with iambic pentameter, Dunham said.

The atmosphere was welcoming, and all of the participants sounded just as ridiculous as the person next to them when they were acting, Lianos said.

“There was a better sense of community,” said Dunham. “They all played. There was no way you could hate Shakespeare with what we did; it was too much fun.”

As a student teacher for Dunham’s class, Rachel Butler participated in these activities for her first time learning almost just as much as the students did, she said.

“I did learn several techniques that were fabulous,” said Butler. “I saw the benefits of having the students move around and making them learn in different ways that I will definitely use in my teaching career.”

During the first few activities, the students felt intimidated, Lianos said. After a while, the actors brought more and more enthusiasm to the exercises making the students more comfortable with each other and finally had them engaging in the tasks.

“We weren’t just hearing Shakespeare, or simply learning Shakespeare, or acting out Shakespeare,” said Dunham. “We got down and dirty with Shakespeare. We became the language. We were Shakespeare.”