Don't be offended. It's not a personal question. If you're not sure what a whoosh is and teach English literature (although they can work well in History, Geography and R.E.), you may have just stumbled across a game changer.
The whoosh is an RSC classic technique used to simplify the narrative of Shakespeare's plays. It allows the students to get the gist of the action very quickly, fosters confidence in playing around with the story and builds a sense of ensemble in the class. Don't underestimate the importance of this last point; creating a sense of community is vital when you want students to take risks with interpretations.
The original RSC method is as simple as possible and purely narrative. I've developed this slightly to also draw attention to themes and contexts in order to link more explicitly to the demands of GCSE. I've also applied it to prose.
Students are invited to be characters, settings and objects. The success of the whoosh relies on exaggerated movements and facial expressions. Therefore, warm up activities should precede a whoosh to encourage enthusiastic participation. Each section of the story is separated into a whoosh. The teacher selects students to take the centre stage with the class surrounding them on chairs. Once the students have acted their section, the teacher waves them away with a ‘whoosh’. The following extract from a whoosh focuses on story, theme and context. Each whoosh includes at least one quotation from the text. Before the whoosh begins, the teacher provides the class with actions and/or noises to echo when the theme or context is conveyed through the whoosh. When there is a direct quotation from the character, the student would be shown the quotation to speak aloud.
With a higher ability group, you could try getting them to write their own whoosh for specific chapters or scenes, great as home learning. They have to make important choices about what quotations, themes and context to include.
"There was once a wealthy lawyer called ‘Utterson’. Utterson was a very good man but very serious man, who never smiled.He was a typical Victorian gentleman. At home when he poured himself a drink, he would reach for a glass of lovely wine and stop himself, repressing his desire and drinking humble dark gin which didn’t taste very nice. When he walked past a theatre, he wanted to go in and see a show but would repress his desire and not go in, like a good Victorian gentleman. However, he didn’t expect his friends to behave the same way; ‘he had an approved tolerance for others’ and was always ready to help if they needed him (make some whispered suggestions to the students if they can’t think how to act this out - helping drunk friends walk, giving friends money). He used to say “I let my brother go to the devil in his own way” and he kept his friends for a long time. WHOOSH Mr Enfield was a distant relation..."
Learning how to whoosh was the first moment whilst working with the RSC where I realised that this approach was going to change the way I taught literature. Students do not have to memorise entire plays and books: they need to know them well. Whooshes do not replace KS4/5 Students reading the entire text but they do shortcut you straight to a place where your students will feel more confident in tackling the unfamiliar language and may even try some early interpretations.
So give it a try in your classroom. You'll be surprised at how instantly less intimidating texts are to your students. Game changer!