By Janine Twining | Development Associate
Thank you for your generous support of Oregon Children’s Theatre!
Just over 6640 students from 105 schools in Oregon and Southwest Washington attended a school performance of Gathering Blue. OCT provided full scholarships to 187 students. Teachers were offered a free professional development workshop in which they were able to preview the performance in advance of bringing their students and learn theater integration and skills from a classroom teacher and theater artist.
Seeing live theater is always a powerful experience for young people, and for many school audience members, it’s the only live arts experience they’ll have all year. Fan mail from students emphasizes the impact: “it was super fantastical—my favorite part was the whole thing.” “I did not want to leave, it was a blast.” Feedback from teachers illustrates that live theater is not only fun and engaging—it strengthens students’ appreciation of reading and language arts: “my students could not stop talking about [the play]. They were comparing their favorite parts, talking about what was funniest, and comparing it to the book.”
One of OCT’s goals as an organization is to provide school audiences with curriculum connections and opportunities for learning beyond students’ trip to the theater. Providing teachers with free resources is one of the ways that OCT deepens student experiences. Teachers receive complimentary tickets to preview performances and also attend backstage tours with OCT’s technical director. Each production also has a free teacher resource guide filled with discussion starters, activities tied to educational standards and learning goals, and reading resources provided by the Multnomah County Library.
Curriculum Connections for Gathering Blue included the following:
The Big Ideas
Curriculum Connections
Resource Guide and Classroom Extras
Our teacher resource guide offers discussion starters, standards-linked activities connected to subject areas including language arts, social sciences, and arts, worksheet downloads, and a reading list from Multnomah County Library. Download the guide at www.octc.org/schoolservices/gatheringblue.
Please feel free to contact us if we can provide any additional information about Gathering Blue or Oregon Children's Theatre’s educational services for disadvantaged schools. Thank you again for your support!
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
