The Crucible
March 5th, 2009It’s Winterim at MC2, which has always been one of the most enjoyable parts of the school year. For one week we put aside everything else—all the normal parts of the day¹—and focus on one learning experience. It’s a targeted, immersive learning opportunity.
As last year, I’m working with a number of students to create a play. It’s always been one of the saddest parts of teaching English that the plays we read² are read and rarely acted out. It’s a limitation of space and time—there’s only so many days that can be devoted to any single work of literature, and there’s only one auditorium. I’ve often had students act out a small part of a scene, but it’s a rare joy to be able to put the whole play together.
Last year, we performed a comedy. This year, I wanted something to broaden the range, to expose the students to something a bit more weighty. I also (as usual) wanted something that would tie in with history, with something that has a deeper context. Literature is always better when it’s presented at the authentic material and evidence of a prevailing social thought,³ and many of my students need American history.
Which led rather naturally to The Crucible. It’s a play that not only provides a glimpse into a seminal event of Puritan Massachusetts, but also into 1950s America.
In reading the play with my kids, I was struck immediately by the different reaction. I taught The Crucible for years at MRHS, across all levels of students. Uniformly, they’ve enjoyed the play, and many of them remember it for years to come.⁴
But I rarely get the emotional reaction that I received Tuesday, reading through it all in a few hours. I’ve never seen students get so angry with the characters, or so frustrated with the decisions and actions depicted. They got the play, and they did so without much in the way of coaching. Most of them knew what was wrong from the very moment the play started to twist—and certainly, every one of them has gotten every aspect of it by the time they completed their second scene-reading.
I’m not quite sure to what I should attribute the student’s understanding—whether it be the emphasis on “voice” and First Amendment freedoms that is integral to MC2, or just the fact we were able to sit down and read it all in one sitting, before lunch. Maybe it’s a combination, but as the first direct comparison between material I would do—very successfully—at MRHS and at MC2, the difference was, if not shocking, at least noticeable.
My gut hunch? These kids knew they were going to need to do something with the play—they knew it was more than just reading it in class. They were all (whether they liked to or not!) going to get on stage in front of others and perform.
And don’t we all do better when we know something is for real, when we know that it’s going to be watched and that it will result in something that will count for more than just a letter?
There’s no easy way to provide stage time and all the rest to a whole class, but it can be done—I’ve seen it.⁴ And I have to wonder how awesome it would be if English classes routinely had a space to show off performances (how about to parents!) of at least scenes, or to the elementary school across the street? It’s something that I think most—if not all—teachers would be in favor of, if given the opportunity.
The tricky part? The schedule—and working out the teams inside the school. Neither one is insurmountable—just breaking out of the mold of what’s been done before.
1 There are changes from last year, however. The schedule, and the need to have lunch at MRHS and participate in a fixed second-language class has meant that we have at least ten fewer hours this week than last year. This isn’t a bad thing at all, but it is an example of the power of the schedule—how much time (more than two full week of 45 minute classes!) can be created or lost by the schedule. Reforming the daily schedule is the single most effective step that could be taken to provide more classroom time—which is why it’s being looked so hard at despite how difficult an adjustment it will be. ↺
2 Monadnock’s English department, to its credit, has always included a strong drama component. There’s the near mandatory works by Shakespeare (traditionally Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Julius Caesar and Macbeth, with the potential for Hamlet and The Taming of the Shrew dependent on the electives taken or the teacher) but also including such strong and classic works as Antigone up to more modern works by Arthur Miller—The Crucible and Death of a Salesman. ↺
3 This was always the great strength of the Junior English curriculum at MRHS: It was American Literature. The focus was clear, the context was clearly defined, and its scope and sequence was obvious. The fact that it was taught opposite American History was a bonus—and I can’t count the number of kids who complained they learned as much history from their English class as they did their Social Studies one…as they should! ↺
3 Years after they graduate, kids continue to call themselves by their play names—Abigail and Lady Macbeth especially. ↺
4 The 2006–2007 school year at MRHS I taught Macbeth with Eric Gross, the teacher across the hall. He had a section of College Prep, I had a section of Honors, and we decided to combine the classes. We also required the students to act out scenes from the play. It went over very well—though marred, I think, by the class structures. The College Prep students felt like the material was “too hard” for them, assuming that if they were in a class of honors, then that meant when they felt challenged, it was because they weren’t smart enough. In reality, the tests, quizzes, and other classroom material was the same as I would use for my “General” students—a level under College Prep—and they had given up as soon as they walked into the room. (The differentiation in levels was in the additional readings on Macbeth I asked my Honors students to do outside of class, and in the depth I demanded in their writing—not in the material.) It was a great example of the damage that “levels” does to student achievement, and one of many reasons that holding students to “competent” and not to a grade is better for them, and their education. ↺
