The Subject That Taught Me the Most by Emily

The Subject That Taught Me the Most by Emily - August 2016 Scholarship Essay

In high school, I was involved in the arts. I was in ten shows, not to mention countless chorus and a capella concerts. I was lucky enough to go to a high school where theatre and music were not only offered as extracurricular activities, but as actual classes. So I would have to say that in high school, I learned the most from the two Theatre classes I took (Intro to Theatre and Honors Theatre).
The reason I have chosen Theatre as the subject that taught me the most is because it taught me about basic theatre history (Commedia Dell’Arte, Shakespeare, etc), but it also taught me a lot about myself and the people around me. Something that comes up a lot when reading plays is themes. Themes can envelop a great amount of other literary elements, such as character motive, symbolism, and playwright’s style. Delving deep into the reason a character does something, or realizing how a playwright’s style contributes to the emotion of the reader causes us to make connections between the text and our real life. Through reading many plays and discussing them, I learned a lot about human emotion, and how the arts are the best way to understand it. For example, Hamlet is grief ridden throughout his entire play, and the extent of his grief causes him to lose his mind- or so we think. While most of us have not been driven to insanity by grief, most of us have experienced it, making Hamlet’s situation relatable to the reader/viewer.
In my Theatre classes, I learned about human emotion through fictional characters. These classes that I took also gave me the information and resources that I will need to study as a theatre major in college. I would not be the person I am today if it weren’t for the Theatre classes I took in high school.