Introducing Shakespeare

In this resource, extracts from eight plays have been carefully selected to introduce to students new to Shakespeare. The activities that accompany the extracts are designed to make Shakespeare accessible even to the unenthusiastic student, and gradually become more challenging as the unit progresses. Activities include improvisation, making a flip book, costume design, finding out about the Elizabethan homeless and tableaux with silent movie style captions.

Students are gradually eased into a lively step-by-step understanding of Shakespeare. The approach to each extract is different to give a sense of variety. Literary terms such as alliteration, rhyme sequence and pun are explained, and students find and highlight examples in the text. By thinking about the tone of voice that is best suited to certain phrases, and which words and phrases to emphasize, the text is vocalized and brought to life. Themes in the text are given a modern-day context through improvisation, making the issues relevant to the students.

Terms such as a play within a play, soliloquy, dumb show and prologue are applied to the extracts with explanations. Students will gain an understanding of the nature of Comedy and Tragedy. In the prologue from Henry V students will gain an insight into Shakespeare’s ideas about the nature of theatre.

The texts are presented almost entirely in their original versions. Following each extract, the less familiar words are listed with their meanings.