WORKING WITH SHAKESPEARE
The Lesson Plans contained on this page are designed to integrate theatre and drama practice-based approaches to engaging in the study of Shakespeare. The exercises provided are derived from decades of professional practice from a range of world-renowned practitioners, adapted for integration into normal classroom circumstances and time-frames. Each Lesson Plan comes with detailed descriptions of how to plan and deliver the exercise, including pedagogical and National Curriculum connections and video demonstrations of the exercises in action. There are also handy tips informed by years of experience, provided to guide teachers through individual diagnosis and problem solving or adaptation of the exercises for frequently encountered learning situations.
Any feedback on any of these exercises would be gratefully received. Equally, if you adapt any of these exercises, alter them or have any alternative approaches which have proved effective in engaging young people in the study of Shakespeare, please send in your information and I would be happy to include your contributions, with attribution, to the Working with Shakespeare resource.
You can contact me at: scott@ozplays.com
Thank you for visiting.
Lesson Plan 1: Learning the story.
This lesson plan is linked to the video, Once in Verona, a 47 minute beat poetry enactment of the entire story of Romeo and Juliet.
The video can be viewed scene by scene or in its entirety. Students can then work individually or collaboratively in building their own graphic novel version of the story using free online apps and a palette of more than 250 images from the video.
This lesson is aimed towards students developing a personalised understanding of the plot and characters of Romeo and Juliet.
Duration: 40 - 70 minutes
Lesson Plan 3: Embodying the story
This lesson completes the sequence of learning the story. The embodying games are collaborative and cumulative and work from the students' own cultural perspectives as they build a sequence of physicalized pictures of the plot actions of Romeo and Juliet. A more advanced adaptation of this activity can involve students exploring key character actions and choices, critical plot points and themes that occur throughout the story.
Duration: 40 minutes
Lesson Plan 4: Figurative language
This lesson involves a variety of games aimed at assisting students in identifying and creating their own puns, onomatopoeia and metaphors. The games allow for a wide range of reading and learning capability and incorporate peer-assisted learning within a supportive milieu of play. Students learn that language is something that they can creatively manipulate to construct nuanced meaning.
Duration: 40 minutes
Lesson Plan 5: Personalizing the words
This lesson tackles Shakesfear: student anxiety over Shakespeare's complex language, unfamiliar words and antiquated references. Students are encouraged to work together to identify difficult terms and to search out definitions and interpretations. Learning activities then engage students in mindful and embodied techniques for personalizing word meanings and associations. Within a playful and socially supportive work environment, students are encouraged to explore kina-textual and embodied meaning within the text.
Duration: 40 minutes
Lesson Plan 6: Unpacking the text
This lesson introduces a systematic approach to breaking Shakespeare's text into manageable segments of meaning. This lesson is the first in a series of three which guides students through a self-driven approach to interpreting Shakespeare's text. The physical approach supports students in negotiating their own personalised understanding of the text.
Duration: 40 - 70 minutes
Lesson Plan 7: The Step Process - interpreting text
This lesson is the second in the series which guides students through a cumulative process of breaking the text into manageable segments of inter-related meaning. Adapted for normal classroom application, the process enables students to explore physical and rhythmic (kina-textual) aspects while familiarizing themselves with semantic understanding of the text. The Step Process enables a personalised, energised and playful interpretation of Shakespeare's text and meaning.
Duration: 40 - 70 minutes
Lesson Plan 8: Speaking Shakespeare
This lesson completes the Step Process series and guides students through an energised and embodied process whereby they are eventually able to speak Shakespeare's text with an informed and engaged clarity. The playful approach is rooted in popular aesthetic practice and supports students in a playful interpretation of Shakespeare's language. Students quickly discover a facility for speaking Shakespeare as if it were everyday language.
Duration: 40 - 70 minutes
Lesson Plan 9: Games for speaking text
This lesson guides students through a playful series of games which enable the accumulation of semantic understanding while exploring aspects of rhythm, pitch, tempo and other kina-textual layers of meaning. Through play, the games enable deeper level personalisation and confidence in engaging with interpretation of Shakespeare's text.
Duration: 40 minutes
Lesson Plan 10: Games for understanding and creating dramatic verse text
This lesson introduces students to the simple and fundamental structures of dramatic verse. Utilising a games structure, students are encouraged to construct their own dramatic and iambic verse from normal prose. The games promote an enhanced capability to interpret Shakespeare's verse.
Duration: 40 minutes.
Lesson Plan 11: Games for writing essays
This lesson introduces students to a peer-assisted supportive structure for prosecuting a critical examination of Shakespeare's plays. Students learn the inter-related skills of essay writing through negotiating assumed or assigned roles in research, investigation, evidence gathering or argument building to fulfill a team examination of critical questions. The supplied Game Package provides questions, pointers, example excerpt material and guidelines appropriate for different learning capabilities.
Duration 40 - 70 minutes.
Lesson Plan 12: making your own monologues
This lesson builds on previous learning to guide students through a process of devising their own dramatic verse monologues. Students choose a character from Shakespeare's play to build their own interpretation of that character's choices, actions and motivations.
Students first build a prose story before applying inversion techniques to construct a beat poetry or hip hop monologue.
Duration: 40 - 70 minutes.