CAL SHAKES IN THE CLASSROOM

Arts Integration Collaboration
To support student achievement and teacher professional development, Cal Shakes In-School Residencies bring teaching artists into the schools with the aim of developing students' minds, imaginations, and voices.
 
These arts integration collaborations support the teaching of required academic curriculum. They partner classroom teachers with Cal Shakes teaching artists to integrate arts-based strategies into core curriculum subjects such as English and History. We deliver customized, arts-based instruction to students during a series of 8–10 sessions. Using a team-teaching approach, Residencies allow students to tap into the artistic experience—and into their own imaginations—while meeting specific curriculum objectives. Theater arts-based activities include performance, playwriting, text, and character analysis, infusing the learning process with fun, and helping students improve a range of academic, creative, and critical thinking skills. Students are more engaged and successful in school, develop their own artistic voices, and enlarge their capacity for community participation.

This approach has yielded proven results, with literacy scores increasing dramatically in just weeks. Appropriate for grades 4–12.

“When we first started our pre-work, the students were really overwhelmed and confused by the twisted plot and the overlapping relationships between characters. It is really cool to see them after the play, not only having a perfect understanding of these attributes but also using the plot and characters as a cultural reference.”
—Andrea Willcox, sixth-grade math teacher at KIPP San Francisco Bay Academy

“Cal Shakes artists have helped me understand how to make Shakespeare come alive for the students. From warm-ups to get energy and community flowing to discussions and acting exercises around character motivation, the teaching artist has given me wonderful tools to work with as I teach the plays each year.”
—Jennifer Dannenburg, teacher at Skyline High School, Oakland
 
“I am writing in support of the terrific educational programs that Cal Shakes provides for young people. Having had their team work with our students over the past three years, I am convinced that their efforts have had tremendous, positive, and important benefits to our students. We continue to seek every opportunity to work with Cal Shakes and will continue to do so in the future.”
—Bruce Holaday, Superintendent of Oakland Military Institute
 
“My diverse 7th grade English/World History students of Latino, Asian, African-American, and Caucasian descent were also engaged and captivated by being afforded the opportunity to work with a remarkable Teaching Artist...Almost without exception, my students for three years have reported at the conclusion of this experience that they have had learned to listen better and to collaborate more willingly. These lessons will remain with them as they continue with their studies and ultimately enter a workplace that values these skills.”
—Peter Mates, teacher at Bret Harte Middle School, Oakland

Artistic Learning Programs Manager Steph White
510.548.3422 x127 or swhite@calshakes.org

Residencies in at-risk communities are underwritten by numerous individual contributors, and generous support from the Dale Family Fund, the Walter & Elise Haas Fund, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, MCJ Amelior Foundation, and the RHE Foundation .