 | Shakespeare's Heartbeat: Drama games for children with autism Subjects: Arts; Education; Theatre & Performance Studies; Inclusion and Special Educational Needs; Primary/ Elementary Education; Autism; Learning Difficulties; By Subject; Children on the autistic spectrum experience varying degrees of difficulties; all of which can be understood as a disassociation of mind and body. Expressing feelings, making eye contact, keeping a steady heartbeat and recognizing faces are all part of the autism dilemma which can be poetically explored by Shakespeare. Over ten years, Hunter worked with children on all points of the spectrum, developing drama games for the specific purpose of combatting autism. These unique games, derived from specific moments in the plays, shed new light on how to teach Shakespeare to children, using the drama as an exploration of how it feels to be alive. Shakespeare's Heartbeat is a step-by-step guide, detailing how to demonstrate, play and share these sensory games. The book includes: Games based on A Midsummer Night's Dream Games based on The Tempest Tips and advice for playing one-on-one with the children An afterword describing Hunter's journey from performer and practitioner to creator of this work.Shakespeare's poetic definitions of seeing, thinking and loving reveal the very processes that children with autism find so difficult to achieve. This book provides an indispensable learning tool for those wishing to encourage children's eye contact and facial expression, improve their spatial awareness and language skills and introduce them to imaginative play. Kelly Hunter is a romance writer who was born and raised in Newcastle Australia. She earned an honours degree in Rural Science and afterwards worked within the university system as a research fellow in biochemistry. From there I went to the cotton fields as an agronomist, then the Department of Primary Industries, then Australia's national science agency, the CSIRO. She began writing romance stories while she was home-schooling her children. She soon joined the Romance Writers of Australia and became registrar, secretary, vice president and then president before stepping back in 2010. She then completed a two year stint as executive editor for Tule Publishing Group's Holiday imprint which gave her a chance to help shape a new contemporary romance line and work with favourite authors across the globe. Her awards include Favourite Short Category Romance for the years 2011-2013, from the Australian Romance Readers Association and Romantic Novella of the Year nominee 2013 from the Romance Writers of Australia. In 2015 she was named a finalist for the Australian Romance Readers Awards. She won the 2017 Australian Romance Readers Awards, Favourite short or category romance, with her story, Casey. (Bowker Author Biography) |
