Shakespeare Scaffolding
Soliloquy Strips
We do this activity every day we read a scene that has a soliloquy. Make sure you have enough lines in the soliloquy to give one line to each student. If you don't, double up on some of the more exciting lines. As students walk into the class, give them each a strip of the soliloquy. Once everyone arrives, they need to go around the room and read their line aloud to their peers and try to piece together what they think the soliloquy is about. For smaller classes, give each student two or more strips. You can also get every student to read their line aloud to the entire class from their desk and then give them a couple minutes to talk to a partner about what they think the piece is about.
This activity gets students familiar with the text they will be reading that day, and they also practice reading Shakespeare aloud. I have a class of 37 students first thing in the morning and this works well to get them interacting and awake for the rest of the period.
Character Analysis Charts
In Shakespearean tragedies, characters often go through a dramatic series of developments as the play unfolds. At the end of every act, students will get into groups of six and discuss characteristics of every character and find supporting evidence within the text. Students will share their traits and evidence with the rest of the class. By doing this at the end of every act, students are able to monitor the character developments that take place and find exactly what actions lead these characters to change the way that they do. Students keep track of these traits all on one sheet, giving each character a new section for each new act.
Mad Libs
These Shakespearean Mad Libs make students become familiarized with the soliloquies that are present within the plays. These templates can be used in multiple ways, such as: practicing their memorization of a soliloquy that they may have to do a monologue of (in a more advanced class), having fun with their classmates to make a silly soliloquy, or if you have students creating their own soliloquies you may be able to give this template to a struggle student so that they can still create their own soliloquy but it is a little less intimidating.
Collaborative Questions
Students are put into groups and given a list of questions (or possibly one question) that they are asked to discuss, document, and present to the class. Questions range from themes that are relevant to the play, or modernized questions that relate to the content that is going on in the scene.
For example, in Hamlet's Act 2:1 we see Polonius planning to spy on his son who is going to school in France. At the beginning of the class, before discussing the play at all, I broke the class up into six groups and handed out one question to each group. These questions discussed issues of privacy and how they felt about privacy in their lives in relation to their parents, why a parent would feel the need to invade their child's privacy, and if you were a parent what would lead you to invade your child's privacy. It allowed students to think about modern
Comprehension Questions
In the HBJ version of Shakespeare's plays, there are comprehension questions listed at the end of each scene that focus on different elements and themes within each play. By selecting a couple of these questions from each scene, you can guide your students understanding of the play towards what you would like them to focus on. In Hamlet, one of the key points I am trying to get across to the students is how modern the themes in the play still are today. Many questions ask the students to find situations similar to the ones presented in the story in modern media or their own lives. This allows students to make deeper connections with the play and the characters emotions within it.
We do this activity every day we read a scene that has a soliloquy. Make sure you have enough lines in the soliloquy to give one line to each student. If you don't, double up on some of the more exciting lines. As students walk into the class, give them each a strip of the soliloquy. Once everyone arrives, they need to go around the room and read their line aloud to their peers and try to piece together what they think the soliloquy is about. For smaller classes, give each student two or more strips. You can also get every student to read their line aloud to the entire class from their desk and then give them a couple minutes to talk to a partner about what they think the piece is about.
This activity gets students familiar with the text they will be reading that day, and they also practice reading Shakespeare aloud. I have a class of 37 students first thing in the morning and this works well to get them interacting and awake for the rest of the period.
Character Analysis Charts
In Shakespearean tragedies, characters often go through a dramatic series of developments as the play unfolds. At the end of every act, students will get into groups of six and discuss characteristics of every character and find supporting evidence within the text. Students will share their traits and evidence with the rest of the class. By doing this at the end of every act, students are able to monitor the character developments that take place and find exactly what actions lead these characters to change the way that they do. Students keep track of these traits all on one sheet, giving each character a new section for each new act.
Mad Libs
These Shakespearean Mad Libs make students become familiarized with the soliloquies that are present within the plays. These templates can be used in multiple ways, such as: practicing their memorization of a soliloquy that they may have to do a monologue of (in a more advanced class), having fun with their classmates to make a silly soliloquy, or if you have students creating their own soliloquies you may be able to give this template to a struggle student so that they can still create their own soliloquy but it is a little less intimidating.
Collaborative Questions
Students are put into groups and given a list of questions (or possibly one question) that they are asked to discuss, document, and present to the class. Questions range from themes that are relevant to the play, or modernized questions that relate to the content that is going on in the scene.
For example, in Hamlet's Act 2:1 we see Polonius planning to spy on his son who is going to school in France. At the beginning of the class, before discussing the play at all, I broke the class up into six groups and handed out one question to each group. These questions discussed issues of privacy and how they felt about privacy in their lives in relation to their parents, why a parent would feel the need to invade their child's privacy, and if you were a parent what would lead you to invade your child's privacy. It allowed students to think about modern
Comprehension Questions
In the HBJ version of Shakespeare's plays, there are comprehension questions listed at the end of each scene that focus on different elements and themes within each play. By selecting a couple of these questions from each scene, you can guide your students understanding of the play towards what you would like them to focus on. In Hamlet, one of the key points I am trying to get across to the students is how modern the themes in the play still are today. Many questions ask the students to find situations similar to the ones presented in the story in modern media or their own lives. This allows students to make deeper connections with the play and the characters emotions within it.