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A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
Students design and create photo albums that tell the story of the play. This involves some extra work, resources, and lots of class time, but the end result is worth it!
This lesson will take two to three class …
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Can't Buy Me Love?
One of the reasons The Merchant of Venice is so interesting—and so troublesome—is that characters in Venice cannot define human values such as justice, mercy, and love in anything other than economic terms. …
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Do Clothes Make the Man?
Dress is an important indicator of social status. In this lesson, students will use one of Queen Elizabeth I’s sumptuary proclamations in order to illustrate what the characters in The Merchant of Venice would wear and to compare …
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Dogberry: The Most Vigitant Lawman Ever
Dogberry and his companions provide gregarious humor in Much Ado About Nothing. By turning the watch into bumbling fools, Shakespeare pokes fun at the law.
The goal of this lesson is to help students interpret …
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Exploring Rhythm in Richard III
Students will examine meter and experiment with pauses in the dialogue between Lady Anne and Richard in 1.2, in order to analyze how rhythm affects meaning and tone. This lesson will take approximately 50 minutes.
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It's All In The Way You Say It
Often, young readers have difficulty understanding Shakespeare's meaning or context. Through a close study of three basic ideas students need to know before beginning to read any play—denotation, connotation, and …
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King Lear's Storm
Act 3, Scene 2 is a pivotal moment in King Lear and one that can really get students involved with the play. The text of this scene demands careful analysis by the students if they are to play it well.
This lesson …
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"Knock, knock"
Students will explore the use of sound as a special effect to enhance or radically change the meaning of a scene. They will provide a soundscape for Macbeth's porter scene, and conclude by listening to and watching two very different …
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Lesson 04: What, Did Caesar Swoon?
Often in Shakespeare, significant events are reported by actors who have witnessed them, rather than the audience seeing the events themselves. Today, students will create "silent scenes" of Caesar rejecting and then accepting the crown, in order …
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Lesson 07: Editing the Conspiracy: Julius Caesar 2.1.94-252
With multiple characters to follow, students can easily lose track of the many details in this passage. Today, students will use close reading skills to edit this piece of text in various ways, requiring them to identify the most significant …
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Lesson 09: Would the real Portia please stand up?
Students will explore the subtext of the two scenes in which Portia appears, to compare the language she uses with her husband Brutus in 2.1 with the language she uses with her boy servant Lucius in 2.4. Students will use their analysis of …
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"Let all of his complexion choose me so": Elizabethan Perceptions of Africans
This play will give students a glimpse into the early modern period’s negative perceptions and stereotypes of human beings of African descent. Students will use information from a primary source to interpret these elements in …
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"Money for Something:" Understanding Usury in The Merchant of Venice
This activity will introduce students to the concept of usury in The Merchant of Venice. By examining various credit card offers, students will learn how accepted it is to lend for gain today and how serious it is to be in …
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"O Time, thou must untangle this": Tangling up the Love in Twelfth Night
Part of teaching middle school and high school students is dealing with lovelorn, love obsessed, and lovesick teenagers. While reading Twelfth Night, students will discover that the characters in the play have as much trouble with love (and …
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"Strike a Pose:" Music and Vogueing in The Winter's Tale
In this lesson, students will reduce Act 3 into lines, images and songs which will help them navigate the many moods of The Winter's Tale in this lynchpin act. The lesson culminates in a performance for the class. It works best after …
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Twelfth Night-The Musical!
This activity allows students to reinterpret Act 2 of Twelfth Night as a musical, using contemporary songs. Students will discover the meaning of the text and the relationships between the characters.
This lesson will take 2 …
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UNIT: She's a Lady...Or is She? Examining dress and behavior in As You Like It and The Merchant of Venice
In this unit, students will analyze the dress and behavior of Portia in The Merchant of Venice and Rosalind in As You Like It. Students will read a primary source to understand the expectations of women in the sixteenth century and …
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UNIT: Using Music to Explore Shakespeare's Characters
Music provides a perfect vehicle to help draw students into Shakespeare's plays. In this unit, students will look at how music is used specifically within the plays to develop characters and themes and to advance …
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Unlocking Soliloquies and Unleashing "the Dogs of War"
Students who are more than happy to discuss plot and dialogue are often intimidated by soliloquies. The following activity uses Mark Antony's moving soliloquy over Caesar's dead body as an example, but it also works wonderfully for other …
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Welcome to Venice
Students will read the opening scene of The Merchant of Venice multiple times without any background information. They will be forced to rely on the text to form judgments about characters, which they will later evaluate as they study the …
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