Signing Shakespeare
There are over 50,000 D/deaf children in the UK and Shakespeare is the only named author that all children are required to study in the national curriculum. But the fact is that there few resources for D/deaf students studying Shakespeare in school.
This lack of resource has a broad and negative impact: recent figures show that British D/deaf students achieve, on average, a grade lower than their hearing peers at GCSE level.
Supported by the Royal Shakespeare Company and Culture Forward, the Signing Shakespeare programme is creating educational resources that bring together visual and active learning for the study of the Shakespeare in schools to address this gap in teaching provision between hearing and D/deaf students.
Braidwood School for the Deaf students workshopping The Tempest by Tegen Kimbley
The programme has pioneered new teaching packs, made possible thanks to a donation from The Arden Shakespeare (an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing PLC), which have been sent to every D/deaf school and major D/deaf unit in the UK. The delivery of these packs was followed up with a CPD day for Teachers of the D/deaf and theatre practitioners who work with D/deaf students in the UK.
The packs sent to the schools contain a complete Scheme of Work for teaching Shakespeare’s Macbeth, as well as handouts and other resources, which accompany films of scenes from the play which are performed by deaf actors using British Sign Language.
The resources for studying Macbeth allow deaf students to explore the story, characters, relationships, themes, imagery, rhythms, and literary devices in the play. The programme features collaborative activities and writing tasks which support students to develop an understanding of the different perspectives and layers within the text.
While Signing Shakespeare began with Macbeth, the ambition of Professor Abigail Rokison-Woodall – Professor of Shakespeare and Theatre, Education Director of the University’s Shakespeare Institute, and Signing Shakespeare Project Lead – is to create resources for all of Shakespeare’s texts on the national curriculum.
Braidwood School for the Deaf students performing The Tempest at Birmingham Rep Theatre by Tegen Kimbley
The programme has since moved onto The Tempest, working in partnership with Birmingham-based Braidwood School for the Deaf in creating drama pieces, performed by Braidwood’s students, which have been showcased at Birmingham Rep Theatre, featured on BBC I-Player, and at the Midlands Art Centre as part of the University’s hosting of the national Being Human humanities festival. Thanks to this performance collaboration, teaching and learning resources are in development for The Tempest.
Signing Shakespeare also aims to raise awareness of the need for these sorts of resources for D/deaf students, with Abigail speaking about the programme at the Westminster re-launch of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Shakespeare.