{"id":1426,"date":"2019-03-27T04:35:24","date_gmt":"2019-03-27T04:35:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sportsnewsforyou.com\/?p=1426"},"modified":"2019-03-27T04:35:24","modified_gmt":"2019-03-27T04:35:24","slug":"theater-brings-literacy-to-life-for-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/?p=1426","title":{"rendered":"Theater Brings Literacy to Life for Kids"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story is part of an ongoing campaign called the\u00a0Alphabet of Illiteracy.\u00a0By using letters themselves\u2014the foundation of reading and writing\u2014Project Literacy\u00a0examines\u00a0the ways illiteracy underpins some of the greatest challenges facing the world today.\u00a0Below, we explore the letter P\u00a0for \u201cperformance.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Three years ago, eleventh-grader Pathum Madigapola was on the verge of dropping out of school. \u201cI felt everyone was against me,\u201d he says. \u201cA lot of schools seem to have this standard on how everything should be learned and it limits the creativity.\u201d He was interested in creative writing, but he didn\u2019t have many opportunities to explore that interest.<\/p>\n

Then he saw a performance by the Get Lit Players, a Los Angeles-based teen performance troupe that combines classic poetry and modern spoken word to create and perform original work. He made the troupe on his second audition, and he says Get Lit inspired him to keep trying and stay in school. \u201cGet Lit turned things around because it gave me a creative outlet,\u201d Madigapola says. \u201cI could be funny, I could be sad, I could be angry. It\u2019s such a safe environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now Madigapola is a sophomore studying film at Los Angeles Pierce College, and says he\u2019s not only learned how to write and edit better but how to make a good impression. \u201cMy teacher helped us learn how to deal with people, how to be on time for everything and project and make direct eye contact,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

In classrooms and auditoriums across the country, theatre and spoken word bring reading and writing to life in ways that words on a page often don\u2019t by themselves. For instance, in Brooklyn, New York, Malenkaya Kompaniya, encourages children of Russian descent to learn Russian through theatre, not just from a book or their parents. In Douglas County, Colorado, the library brings free theater productions based on literature to promote early literacy in schools and libraries through Page to Stage Productions.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of our students are severely at risk, they come from very bad neighborhoods and have to deal with violence on their streets and homelessness,\u201d says Get Lit\u2019s marketing and communications manager Veronika Shulman. \u201cThen we also have students who do come from privilege but have their own struggles being over-sexualized by the media or feeling so much pressure to succeed, it gives them crippling anxiety.\u201d Much of spoken word is focused on activism, so the genre gives voice to the issues and ideas participants care about.<\/p>\n

In spoken word, writing is just as important as performing and competing in poetry slams (competitions where poets recite original works) motivates Get Lit participants. \u201cThe competition serves as an inspiration for them to try harder to have a deadline, get it polished, work on it,\u201d Shulman says. \u201cIt teaches them to finish a task and serves as a guide for them to have this repertoire of things that they can perform.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Get Lit Rising book features poetry by 19 participants (their poems are reactions to classic poems), and a handful of participants have even performed on the Queen Latifah show, opened for John Legend and filmed a PSA for the UN. \u201cAs of now, we\u2019re the most viewed spoken word poets in the world,\u201d Shulman says. \u201cThat\u2019s pretty cool considering that our kids haven\u2019t even graduated from high school.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, at\u00a0Young Playwrights\u2019 Theater (YPT) in Washington, D.C., students ranging from elementary through high school learn to express themselves through playwriting. YPT offers in-school playwriting programs and, for students who want to dig deeper into this topic, a summer and after-school playwriting program.<\/p>\n

Although they don\u2019t work exclusively in low-income areas, YPT\u2019s schools are mainly Title 1 schools and many of its students are minorities (a third speak English as a second language). \u201cWhat we\u2019ve seen is that despite countless studies showing the benefits of integrating the arts, creative writing is still vanishing from classrooms and vanishing disproportionately from students in low-income areas or students of color,\u201d says executive director Brigitte Winter. \u201cWe make our decisions about which schools to bring this program to with that in mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

For many of these students, YPT marks the first time they\u2019re encouraged to write about whatever they want without censorship. \u201cTreating those stories with value can do wonders for students\u2019 engagement in the educational process and trigger amazing advances in literacy,\u201d Winter says.<\/p>\n

That philosophy seems to work. During the 2013-2014 school year, middle school students demonstrating Exemplary or Proficient skill in using elements of language such as spelling or diction to communicate character traits rose from 34 to 63 percent over the course of the in-school playwriting program. Older and younger students also showed improvement in their writing skills.<\/p>\n

Nora Spellane, 22, is a YPT alum who\u2019s now working as a professional actor and stage manager in Washington, D.C. She says her experience in YPT helped inspire her to pursue theatre as a career and honed her writing skills. \u201cIt made me more observant, more critical, also a better editor because I learned to be really strict about what needed to be in the piece and what didn\u2019t,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n

The goal of these programs isn\u2019t to create actors, poets or playwrights but to give them skills to succeed in life, whatever path or profession they choose. \u201cThe most exciting stories about our students tend to be students who go on to do things that have nothing to do with playwriting,\u201d Winter says. \u201cWe have a student who went on to study neuroscience and talks about his experience being validated by adults and gaining confidence and critical thinking skills.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

We think words mean power, and so should you. Through Project Literacy, GOOD and Pearson are building partnerships for a more literate future. Follow the #ProjectLiteracy hashtag and visit good.is or projectliteracy.com to tell us your stories, help us ask the right questions, and take action in your community.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This story is part of an ongoing campaign called the\u00a0Alphabet of Illiteracy.\u00a0By using letters themselves\u2014the foundation of reading and writing\u2014Project Literacy\u00a0examines\u00a0the ways illiteracy underpins some of the greatest challenges facing the world today.\u00a0Below, we explore the letter P\u00a0for \u201cperformance.\u201d Three years ago, eleventh-grader Pathum Madigapola was on the verge of dropping out of school. \u201cI…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}