Colleges, high schools use Hamilton in teaching

CHICAGO — More than 2,000 American students got into the hottest show in Chicago for free — Hamilton: An American Musical — as part of their acceptance to Northwestern University.

It’s one of the ways colleges and high schools are using the hugely popular musical to teach students about history, art, drama, culture and even politics. There’s even a high school program co-ordinated through the show that has allowed nearly 49,000 students in four cities to see the show for free or reduced admission.

“It’s one thing to learn about these kind of events in a classroom, but to go and see this in a production, it’s different and it’s just amazing,” said Northwestern freshman Alex Richards after seeing the musical.

First-year Northwestern students went to two matinées at CIBC Theatre in October on 48 buses as part of the One Book One Northwestern program, which includes a series of discussions, speakers and other events around the theme of a book.

This year it was Danielle Allen’s Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defence of Equality.

Nancy Cunniff, director for One Book One Northwestern, says the program gives students a common discussion point when they get to campus, as well as a different perspective on a subject.

“Our approach has been to find different access points,” Cunniff said. “So maybe history is not your thing but you like musicals and then you go and see this musical and then maybe history isn’t so bad.”

The university also started a class last year called “Hamilton’s America,” a lecture course cross-listed in history and Latino studies. Last year, they taught 135 students and this year, they plan to raise the cap to 180, expecting interest to increase after the One Book program, said Geraldo Cadava, an associate professor who helps lead the class.

Milwaukee’s Marquette University is offering an honours, pass-fail course this semester for freshman called “Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton,” after the musical’s creator. And it’s overfilled by almost double at 14 people. Assistant English professor Gerry Canavan uses the soundtrack, videos and lyrics as well as the Ron Chernow biography of Alexander Hamilton, which Miranda used as inspiration for the play.

“To me it’s a really interesting way to teach the skills of criticism and interpretation and careful reading, because you are looking at something that you haven’t necessarily been trained how to read in the same way you’ve been trained to read great literature,” Canavan said.