BIG PLAYS: Disadvantaged Students Connecting Online through Classic Theater https://grants.dudleytdoughertyfoundation.org/proposals-2013/big-plays-disadvantaged-students-connecting-online-through-classic-theater https://grants.dudleytdoughertyfoundation.org/@@site-logo/sitelogo-75x75.png

BIG PLAYS: Disadvantaged Students Connecting Online through Classic Theater

Additional Information
Used for	Our online radio play adaptation of Macbeth, which is already in use across the U.S., will be translated into Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Arabic, Portuguese, and Hindi for use by 6 underprivileged classrooms. We'll edit, illustrate, and upload 6 bilingual paperback editions of our play with support materials to CreateSpace. We will plan and implement a series of 10 culturally-rich virtual field trips and discussions via Google's Community called Connected Classrooms Workshop.
Benefits	It benefits the world every time children from different cultures collaborate and learn to see through each other's eyes. Studying a literary masterpiece and activity collaborating with peers live online will open a world of possibility for these children. The focus will be to show the world how everyone-including the underprivileged-can appreciate a literary masterpiece, use technology, and increase academic vocabulary.
Proposal Description	BIG FUN Education: BIG Plays We are working on building the world's first K-12 motivational learning community based on adaptations of classic dramatic literature and on original dramatic treatments of classic poems (for primary grades). Background: Annabelle Howard began writing adaptations of classic plays while teaching in New York City's Washington Heights neighborhood in 1981-1983. She started with Antigone, to get her 5th graders interested in the Greeks. The students were extremely motivated, so she figured out how to tie most of the curriculum into "rehearsals". From 1986-1990, Annabelle self-published the plays, and from 1991-2001, they were licensed to Sundance Publishers. Altogether, Annabelle produced 28 plays. The scripts and an accompanying board game were used by teachers in 50 U.S. states and 10 other countries. Early in 2013, having founded a nonprofit, Annabelle received a grant from the Dewing Foundation that enabled her, in a pilot program in New Britain, Connecticut, to research how these techniques could be translated from paper to today's technology, how they could serve struggling, underprivileged students and their teachers, and how they could meet the new Common Core English Language Arts standards. In that pilot program, in the city with the lowest scores in Connecticut, the state with the widest achievement gap, 69% of students reported sharing the online play with their families at home in the first week. Within a month, 90% of them had learned 40 new words. These outreach and academic results were spectacular for this population. As a format that Annabelle developed from this work, a BIG Play consists of an adaptation of a classic of dramatic literature, or an original play built around a classic text such as a poem. The adaptation is produced as a radio play and delivered as an online multimedia experience in which students can read the script along with the radio play, see pop-up vocabulary, non-fiction, acting tips, comparisons between the adaptation and the original, and helpful quizzes, via any device that can get online. In addition, a paperback edition of the script can be available via Amazon's CreateSpace at low costs. These editions can vary and can create great flexibility in the way these techniques and materials are used and distributed. We seek support so that we can create special editions of our Macbeth with accompanying translations and additional educational content in Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Arabic, Portuguese, and Hindi. We will pilot the use of these materials with 6 classrooms serving underprivileged populations. What It's All About: Student motivation is the most important thing in education, especially with disadvantaged kids. Yet, increasingly, teachers complain that creativity and motivation are being drained out of education. They complain that students are becoming lab rats subjected to endless testing. Technology, which promises personalized instruction, is providing increasingly isolating experiences, where kids come into a computer lab, put on headphones, and never interact. Listening and speaking, the building blocks of language arts, are increasingly suppressed as class sizes skyrocket and make silence and control a practical necessity. Worst of all, these negatives are most severe in the schools serving the kids who most need help finding a mission and believing in a goal. BIG Plays cuts through this knot of inter-related problems by providing creativity within a clear structure, by providing learning tools that rigorously meet standards but are not slavish practice tests, by making technology social, collaborative, and alive, by providing structure and discipline to listening and speaking tasks, and by building easy-to-cross bridges between our adaptations and some of the world's greatest and most complex creative achievements(our Macbeth measures grade 1.5 reading level, for example, but is pegged to the Common Core standards for grades 9-10). We have seen these adaptations provide tremendous motivation and empowerment to kids who. at tragically young ages, had come to see school as a frustrating series of failures. With these plays, kids win. What Our Proposal is All About: The goal is to expand cultural literacy, increase intercultural exchanges, increase academic vocabulary, and use technology to expand opportunity. Our 6 bilingual editions and one English-only will each include 12 passages of related non-fiction and many illustrations. Academic vocabulary will be clickable online, providing contextual explanation. The paperback editions will list the 40 words and will have friendly explanations in two languages. Writing tasks, Listening and Speaking tasks, and related digitsl resources will be online. A Teacher's Guide will be written in English so that all 6 classrooms prepare thoroughly for the Hangouts On Air. The Google Hangouts On Air we will host, to melt the classroom walls and generate a sense for the kids that the world out there is waiting for them to do their best and to excel. We believe this support and this project can truly be a ripple in a pond, opening up the proven power of these classics in these adapted and technologically-enhanced forms to teachers everywhere who are working with populations of underprivileged children. We are very excited for this possibility and tremendously grateful to philanthropic supporters like your Foundation for the opportunity to carry this work forward. Budget: $5,000 for 5 translations of the play, 40 definitions, 12 related non-fiction pieces, and other curated resources. $2,000 for 200 books to be sent to 6 classrooms world-wide, various experts, and media people. $1,500 for a Teacher's Guide. $3,500 to project-manage the publishing, edit 7 books, format the manuscripts for CreateSpace and publish on Amazon. $3,000 to find at least 6 committed teachers and 180 students, support teachers, design and implement 10 Hangouts On Air.