Shakespeare Booklet: Exploring Shakespeare's World (KS3)

This is an extremely dense 12 page booklet with easily an entire scheme of work. This has been created to give year 7 an introduction to Shakespeare: to understand his life, works, times, theatre and to grasp how a script works. There are two pages which focus on Shakespeare’s villains (Don John and Iago) but in reality this is to simply expose students to Shakespeare’s life and characters rather than to complete in depth analysis of a plot and character. Although this was created with year 7 in mind it would fill a gap at any level of Key Stage 3 if students’ knowledge of Elizabethan England is lacking.

Both the editable Word document and .pdf are provided - please note the word document may not appear like the booklet pdf because of font use and formatting.

This booklet is also available as part of a Shakespeare bundle with two other KS3 booklets covering Shakespeare heroes and the idea of tragic heroes and Shakespeare’s relationships.

The booklet is as follows:
1 - front cover and basic dramatic terminology glossary
2 - William Shakespeare information with space to create a fact file
3 - Shakespeare’s works - basic information, followed by a task to understand the difference between comedies, tragedies and histories then sorting key plays into each type
4+5 - a double page spread with a timeline across Elizabethan and Jacobean England. At the top students can create a timeline of historical events and then plot Shakespeare’s life underneath (perhaps using page 2)
6 - Elizabethan entertainment - 4 boxes for students to complete information about bear baiting, bull baiting, cock fighting and the theatre - I have attached the factfile made to accompany this lesson.
7- The Globe Theatre - A label the Globe picture followed by a gap fill about its history (in image)
8- Understanding a script - the first scene of Macbeth is used to explain the layout of a script, followed by a gap underneath for students to make their own mini script using a similar layout and features.
9- Stage directions- a list of common Shakespeare stage directions with definitions for students to match followed by some complex stage directions to "translate"
10 - An explanation of the character and his motives, an extract from the play (1.3) and a series of questions which track students through the extract.
11 - An explanation of the character and his motives,an extract from 1.1 alongside a modern translation followed by a series of questions.
12- a common words glossary where students should independently record new words learnt.