11/2/2022
Education and Outreach
No doubt, reading builds student success.
Studies routinely find that reading not only promotes English-language proficiency, it also helps to reduce stress, heighten empathy and improve students’ test scores.
Schools throughout Nevada report challenges in this area, with notable declines in reading and English-language proficiency as a result of the pandemic.
To help address this trend, The Smith Center created the Links to Literature Artist Residency program. This underscores the value of reading, by helping to deepen young students’ understanding of the literary themes, voices and perspectives featured in the student matinees that The Smith Center presents during the 2022-2023 Clark County School District (CCSD) school year.
As a nonprofit, The Smith Center presents student matinees for roughly 25,000 students each school year, at no cost to schools. These often serve as students’ first introduction to live theater.
The center’s new Links to Literature program this year provided approximately 3,000 preschool-to-5th-grade students with complimentary copies of the books that inspired the productions they saw at The Smith Center.
The program also arranged in-school lessons with Smith Center teaching artists, to foster greater comprehension and discussion of the text and the nature of live theater.
“Helping young students connect a student matinee performance they see with the literature that serves as the source material for that performance can really help young students to more fully appreciate the experience,” says Rebecca Boyd, senior manager for The Smith Center’s education and outreach team.
Angela Taylor, a second-grade teacher at Tony Alamo Elementary School, was quick to sign up her classroom for Links to Literature. She believed this would enhance her students’ first matinee experience of the school year, “Pout Pout Fish,” based on the bestselling children’s book by Deborah Diesen.
“It is so fun to see that lightbulb go off, when the kids make those literary connections with a show they get to see,” she says.
Students benefit twofold by seeing productions that bring literature to life, coupled with an in-school artist residency, Taylor says. This not only helps to give context to the student matinee experience, she says, but it also fosters an appreciation of reading at the same time.
“Literature-based performances can provide the hook you’re seeking as a teacher, if you give students the opportunity to go deep in their understanding of the experience,” Taylor says.
Setting the Stage in the Classroom
Before Links to Literature participants even travel to The Smith Center to see a student matinee, they enjoy classroom visits with experienced and highly trained Smith Center teaching artists.
These artists give the students a preview of the show, to build anticipation and excitement.
Taylor’s classroom was visited by veteran teaching artists Jay Nagle and Graciela Strahan, who entered the classroom with enthusiasm, holding hand puppets portraying the sea characters in “Pout Pout Fish.”
The two led a classroom discussion about the show and how acting, dancing and singing come together to make a musical.
Nagle explained how the various fish characters in the “Pout Pout Fish” musical sometimes feel something “so much so that they want to sing.”
“What kind of fish are you?” Nagle asked students, while encouraging them to name different kinds of fish and then dance how they would imagine their fish to dance.
With this exercise, Nagle and Strahan took the opportunity to talk about how actors in “Pout Pout Fish” are able to bring their fish to life on stage through the use of puppets.
In closing, Nagle and Strahan reviewed some of the rules of the show when attending a student matinee, including how to enter the theater as a “school of fish.”
“Suggesting that students stick together as a school of fish was a great way for them to imagine entering the theater as a disciplined group, but one that is also having a lot of fun,” says Taylor.
Tying It All Together
After seeing “Pout Pout Fish” at The Smith Center, Taylor’s students were treated to another visit by Smith Center teaching artists Nagle and Strahan for a recap of the show.
“Our objective in the follow-up session was to get students on their feet and thinking about what they saw on stage,” says Nagle.
Students were given hand puppets to represent various fish, and encouraged to hold them up to the wall as Nagle focused a light to demonstrate shadow puppets as an old form of storytelling.
Nagle and Strahan then led the students through a variety of discussions, covering such topics as whether a character is a protagonist or an antagonist, how some of the characters responded to challenges they faced, and why certain vocabulary words like alliteration and onomatopoeia are relevant to reading.
“My students gained both practical academic information and some real-life lessons,” says Taylor, who hailed the overall engagement as extremely positive.
“My students loved the experience, and can’t wait to go back to see another show,” she says. “They also want to read more of the books in the ‘Pout Pout Fish’ series.”
Learn More
To learn more about The Smith Center’s student matinees and Links to Literature program, please contact [email protected]
The Smith Center is grateful to Windsong Trust, Wawanesa Insurance and MONAT Gratitude for their support of the Links to Literacy program.