“What makes a true hero?” Teaching artist Jacob Watson helped his Piccolo Elementary students in Humboldt Park explore this question through the lens of theater and storytelling. Starting with theater games like tableau and character talk shows, and building up to the creation of entire scenes, Jacob helped his students gain the confidence to share their work; ultimately they put together a play about heroes and teamwork, which they performed for the school community in a program showcase.
Students made many strides during this program. For one, developing the courage to perform is no small feat. Jacob said of one student: “I remember one day making up a story for the group that involved a girl protagonist (most of the class were boys), to see if she would volunteer for it. She did, and she performed the whole story very bravely. From then on, I saw her take tiny risks each day.”
The young actors and actresses also discovered through their arts learning that we all have at least one similarity to our favorite super heroes: The ability to find courage within ourselves.
Read more about this program on our blog.