Project Description

Middle school, high school and college educators, faced with mounting cutbacks in their budget allocations, are being challenged to discover new, cost-effective methods to enhance their classes. Increasingly, arts-related subjects suffer the most when these cutbacks occur. Educators, eager to ensure that their students receive some exposure to theatre, are seeking ways to bring theatre into the classroom. The Character Studies Education Project gives them the option to do that - use theatre as the basis for as many as two weeks' worth of classes that can be used to teach communication arts, English, history, social studies, science and human relationships.

"Character Studies," is generating specially designed curriculum materials, based on the most significant characters from the most significant modern dramas and musicals. The production process required to produce a television episode generates far more information than what finally makes it into a broadcast. We will employ all those rich resources to create substantive, multimedia materials that are developmentally appropriate for middle and high school students.

We have launched a six-part video series titled "Character Studies Conversations," distributed by industry leader Films Media Group, and (click here for a video clip - PC or Mac OS X) each package permits an educator to follow any of more than a dozen different lines of instruction. This approach takes into account the variety of standards educators must meet, school to school, state to state, and offers each educator several choices to meet those standards. It also acknowledges that students learn in different ways, and that educators employ a number of different teaching methods, often within the same class.

Because each class, educator and school district reflect local, specific conditions, each session will be centered around students' interaction with the materials. In this way, the content, the pace and the depth will be shaped by the students themselves. Available materials may be used in classes from the eighth grade, through college-level courses.

The pilot project demonstrated that the Character Studies materials:

• are effective using various teaching methods
• recognize that students learn in different ways, such as

  a. through physical movement
  b. using writing exercises
  c. through classroom dialogue
  d. with visual images
  e. through role play exercises
  f. with contemporary cultural references

• do not require any other financial outlays beyond the initial package
• that teachers can choose which materials best suit their students
• that the materials fit into a 40 to 55 minute time slot or can be expanded for use in double periods
• that the materials allow for the participation of students from other classes, such as video, film or drama
• that in addition to the language-based classes, such as English, communication arts and theatre, other classes can use the materials. These include:

  a. history
  b. American studies
  c. science
  d. social studies
  e. music
  f. applied math/economics

• that classroom educators will know that students whose interest in these characters, or in theatre generally, can then log on to the Character Studies website to learn more, without requiring additional classroom or individual teacher time

It is an important objective of the Education Project of "Character Studies" to offer a package of materials that will not require any additional outlay of funds to be effective.

The Character Studies Advisory Board reflects a broad range of experience, skills and qualifications that will insure that our curriculum materials are of the highest quality. In addition, the Project has also drawn from expert opinion in this specific field- using the arts to teach other subjects.

Introducing Character Studies materials into classrooms also produces another, broader result- showing America's young people that the world of theatre can and does have relevance to their lives. Too often, they think of theatre as a subject reserved for the elite, the intelligentsia, the academics, their educators, other people. Character Studies takes apart that misconception, and in the process, help to build the theatre audiences of the future.

Click here for information on how to order Character Studies curriculum materials.