Literacy Workshop


	Taking Literature from Page to Stage: a Literacy Workshop Monday, OCTOBER 3rd, 6-8:30 at the Providence Athenaeum 251 Benefit St., Providence This FREE workshop requires a reservation and a $5 commitment fee. Call 437-2297 to reserve space and mail your nonrefundable check to: Living Literature, 120 Riverside Dr., Riverside, RI 02915 Or email Barry Press Our time-tested workshop takes literature from page to stage. Participants read aloud and interact collaboratively, recreating a piece of non-dramatic writing through readers theater performance. It's a fun, supportive way of exploring the written word in voice and body that improves analytical thinking, exercises interpersonal communication, and builds confidence in decision making and group interaction. We will challenge you to get up, with text in hand, to recreate a piece of literature through performance. Our unparalleled approach to literature helps professionals enliven any classroom. The Providence Athenaeum supports the outreach efforts of Living Literature, which is listed in the Education Roster of the Rhode Island State Council of the Arts.		Living Literature's readers theatre style workshops are for teachers, librarians and anyone interested in taking literature from page to stage. They are led by Barry Press, Artistic Director, and two other members of the group. This workshop complements teaching methods by providing active, exciting techniques that get students involved. The goal of this process is to improve analytical thinking, exercise interpersonal communication and build confidence in decision making. It encourages participants to identify the who, what, where when and why of a piece of literature. It challenges everyone to get on their feet, text in hand, in order to activate a story through performance. It develops a supportive, collaborative process and asks students to read aloud. And it provides techniques that illuminate subtleties of mood, complexities of character, and, most importantly, the story's relevance to the reader. About the Literacy Workshop The first workshop was held at the Providence Athenaeum in 2001. It has become a popular program with the educational community throughout the state. Teachers and librarians have had this to say: "It helps engage students, rids them of passivity and 're-injects' drama in our standards-based approach....Helps in role-playing and value building through immersing them in a variety of character education contexts." "To read it with others helped to achieve different perspectives and points of view. To think of multidimensional (movement, action, multiples voices) characteristic of a piece of literature was amazing!" "We often read about the effects of television on children and we complain about how our students no longer read with pleasure or understanding. LIVING LITERATURE is a creative, exciting response to this literacy crisis..." Recent participants have shared: "I was very impressed with your presentation that I attended at the Athenaeum.... It was a most interesting and enjoyable experience, and one that I have implemented both directly and indirectly in my classroom over the past year and a half." "The idea of transforming poetry and literature into performance pieces is a very useful learning tool and the actor/teachers present the techniques in an inventive and accessible way....Performance, both on an informal and larger scale is a vital learning tool and giving these skills back to an audience is an important part of the learning process."
	This workshop is made possible by a grant from the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.