Random Thoughts about Teaching Shakespeare

It is more important to get kids to like Shakespeare than it is to get them to understand every word.

The best way to get kids to like Shakespeare is by getting them to perform Shakespeare.

Performing Shakespeare does not mean having students sit at their desks reading out loud, or having students stand in front of the room reading out loud, or the teacher acting out scenes for the class.

Acting out a scene is a form of close reading on your feet.

Sometimes it is better to do just part of a play rather than the whole play.

There are wonderful plays to teach other than the Big 4

The best way to use video may not always be showing the DVD from the beginning to the end.

A few tricks and gimmicks are not enough to make a Shakespeare learning experience significant.

If you’re using a “modern” version of a Shakespeare play, you’re not teaching Shakespeare.

When students properly use Web 2.0 technology to learn Shakespeare, they are usually using performance and doing a close reading of the text.

Studying Shakespeare’s life doesn’t really help students understand the plays.

Designing Globe Theaters out of sugar cubes and Popsicle sticks, making Elizabethan newspapers, designing costumes, doing a scavenger hunt on the Internet, or doing a report on Elizabethan sanitary conditions has nothing to do with a student’s appreciation of Shakespeare’s language.

Tone O

Definition of Tone int. Expressing (according to intonation) surprise, frustration, discomfort, longing, disappointment, sorrow, relief, hesitation, etc. Used mainly in imperative, optative, or exclamatory sentences or phrases, as in O take me back again!, O for another glimpse of it!, O the pity of it!, O dear!; often also emphatically in O yes, O no, O indeed, etc The Oxford English Dictionary

Your Turn O

surprised

Angry

afraid

exhausted

sad

suspicious

excited

awe

lusty

contempt

Definition of Stress Relative loudness or force of vocal utterance; a greater degree of vocal force characterizing one syllable as compared with other syllables of the word, or one part of a syllable as compared with the rest; stress-accent. Also, superior loudness of voice as a means of emphasizing one or more of the words of a sentence more than the rest. Oxford English Dictionary

I didn’t say he killed our King

I shall, in all my best, obey you, Madam. Hamlet 1.2

Some lines from Shakespeare

O, how I love thee! how I dote on thee! (lusty)

O, for a stone-bow, to hit him in the eye! (angry)

O, I am out of breath in this fond chase! (exhausted)

O, I am fortune’s fool! (regret)

O, speak again, bright angel! (lusty)

O lamentable day! (misery)

O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! (excited)

O me, O me! My child, my only life. (distraught)

O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied? (disappointed)

O God! did Romeo's hand shed Tybalt's blood? (fear)

O God! did Romeo's hand shed Tybalt's blood? (horror)

O God! did Romeo's hand shed Tybalt's blood? (sorrow)

O God! did Romeo's hand shed Tybalt's blood? (anger)

O God! did Romeo's hand shed Tybalt's blood?

Our play is done! (relief)