“Can you even fall in love with yourself?”:using music and drama to enable all students to access Latin literature

Abstract

This study explores how the incorporation of musical and dramatic activities into the teaching of Latin literature affects a student’s ability to access the more complex themes of the narrative, and their overall enthusiasm for the subject, in a mixed comprehensive state school. The findings showed that when students were given an alternative method through which to interpret a text in a personable way, their engagement with the text greatly improved. The most important finding of the study, and opportunity for further research, was seemingly how the students were able to translate and discuss their own emotions more fluidly when given a vehicle through which to channel them.