Nearly every high school student knows the horrible feeling of sitting in class each day and taking endless notes as the teacher lectures for 45 minutes straight.  Hearing the same voice every single day can be a nightmare, and English teacher Michael Knapp acknowledges this.

This year Knapp plans to turn his classroom into a Broadway theater.  Rather than lecturing his students day after day, Knapp strives to create more interactive and exciting lesson plan.  Knapp’s English classes are currently in the midst of reading the Homer’s The Odyssey, not exactly light reading material.  

In order to help his students prepare and absorb the information from The Odyssey, Knapp has thought of a creative way to instill the characters and plot in his students’ heads.

Knapp had his students recreate The Trojan War based on the story of Homer’s The Iliad.

“I am really excited to perform the play,” sophomore Matt Ciattareli said.  “It’s something different to do in class.”

Last year Knapp had his students in one class read the play, but they did not act it out.  He hopes that acting out the play this year will be a more interactive and memorable experience for his English students.  

“I hope that this assignment helps introduce concepts and characters from the Odyssey while enabling my students to better visualize the events that lead up to Odysseus’s long journey home,” Knapp said.  “I also hope that students have fun with the assignment.”

 Thanks to theatre director Casie Fitzgerald, sword props and costumes were utilized by student when acting out Knap’s staging of The Trojan War. The props definitely added some realism to the performances.

“I believe that my peers, as funny as they are, approached every part (important or not), very seriously,” sophomore James Fells said.

English teacher Shawn Layton had the opportunity to see Knapp’s period 10 class take to the stage.

“I was very impressed,” Layton said. “The students were all engaged and really took to their roles. I was transported.”

While Knapp doesn’t plan to stage a mini-play for every piece of literature his students will study this year, he does think it is worthwhile if the students get something out of the experience that cannot be had without some enactment.

“If my students tell me that this was an effective learning experience, I would consider using this play again in the future; however, in that case, I would definitely invest in some costume helmets and armor,” Knapp said. “Or maybe a little wooden horse.”