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The Strawberry Grows Under The Nettle: How An Integrated Performance-Based Approach To The Teaching Of Shakespeare At The Secondary Level Affects Critical Thinking Skills As Measured By The California Critical Thinking Skills Test, Brent T. Strom

Dissertations

Though Shakespeare remains the most taught author in American secondary school curriculum, and though there is growing evidence to suggest that the best practice for teaching the Bard is through a performance-based approach, there has been no empirical evidence to support one methodology over another.

This study utilized the California Critical Thinking Skills Test to measure the growth in critical thinking skills that students obtained through a traditional `seat-bound' versus a `performance-based' approach to the teaching of Shakespeare at the secondary level. Its purpose was to determine whether there would be a statistically significant difference between the two.

Subjects were …