ABSTRACT

I called it an in-school field trip, taking my ninth graders to the cavernous and empty school auditorium. I was a new teacher, and I had just about lost all hope of doing anything worthwhile with Julius Caesar. I tried everything I could think of from class readings, to text explications, to history lectures. Whatever I did with the play fell flat on my docile students. This was it—my last effort. My students were given a chance to put on the play, performing scenes for each other on a large stage in an empty auditorium.