Macbeth and Makerspaces

PMHS students are utilizes the newest feature of our library, Makerspaces.

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Photo by Photo by Karen Varacalli

Sean Long, Camryn McGrath, and Karyn Waltz work on projects at Makerspaces.

PMHS has a new innovative, creative method to use for with our academic classes. Our tenth grade class recently spent time in the library doing a project on Macbeth. My teacher, Mrs.Varacalli and the librarian, Mrs.Lukemire, designed a project using Makerspaces. This project consists of five different station: costume design, castle creation, trading card creation, diary entry, and story board. These stations help students thoroughly wrap our heads around what we have read in Macbeth. It helps to give a better understanding of the characters and the setting.
Station one is Clothing Design. We used cloth and other materials provided to create clothing for the characters of Macbeth. We researched and found pictures of the characters and tried to replicate it as best as possible.
The next station was Castle Creation. At this station we had to replicate a castle from Macbeth. First, we went online and researched castles from the time period of Macbeth, 1050 AD. Next, we had to sketch a copy of the castle that had been printed. We were given a giant bin of Legos to build and replicate a castle.
The next station was Trading Card Creation. This is similar to making a baseball card for the characters of Macbeth using the element of characterization. This station has as many different components to it, almost as many components as ways to be imaginative. We had to select two characters from the play Macbeth to create cards depicting the characters.
After that station comes Diary Entries. In this activity we chose a character from Macbeth and wrote a diary of several events on what we read, as if we were that person. This station helped us to understand how the character feels. We took creative license with this part of the project. This was a fantastic imagination station. It really put our minds to the test in two ways: to test our knowledge on Macbeth as well as our creativity. We had to have four diary entries for this station.
The final station of this project is Storyboard. Within this station we created a comic strip based on Macbeth. We selected the people and customized everything. This station is meant for us to recreate scenes from Macbeth. This lets us add our own creative twist to the play.
The experience with Makerspaces is a great way to reinforce all the material we have covered in the play Macbeth. It gives one the opportunity to explore and be creative. The reason this is different from other projects is its hands-on approach. Lots of other projects are just researching a topic and writing an essay. This project is the opposite of that and one of the most creative projects I have ever done.