1. Shakespeare / Literary Heritage Controlled Assessment Unit
Herbert, John Rogers. ‘King Lear Disinheriting Cordelia’ (1850)
Shakespeare / Literary Heritage Controlled Assessment Unit
According to your coursework task, you are exploring the ways that writers present strong feelings about parent and child relationships to interest the audience in Acts I – III of 'King Lear‘, making links between the play and three poems from the Literary Heritage anthology.

2. SparkNotes: Shakespeare's King Lear Summary
Herbert, John Rogers. ‘King Lear Disinheriting Cordelia’ (1850)
English Literature – Shakespeare/Literary Heritage Controlled Assessment
SparkNotes: Shakespeare's King Lear Summary
Royal Shakespeare Company: 'King Lear' starring Sir Ian McKellen
The first link above is a 10 minute summary of the play from SparkNotes. The second is the full-length RSC version of the play on Youtube.
Google ‘King Lear’ for free study aids. Register to ‘Book Rags’ or use ‘SparkNotes’ to familiarise yourselves with the plot (Note that these resources are NOT substitutes for reading the play and engaging with its language.)

3. English Literature – Shakespeare/Literary Heritage Assessment Objectives
Can you…
AO1 writers’ ideas
respond to texts critically and imaginatively; select and evaluate relevant textual detail to illustrate and support interpretations
AO2 language and structure
explain how language, structure and form contribute to writers’ presentation of ideas, themes and settings
AO3 links
explain links between texts, evaluating writers’ different ways of expressing meaning and achieving effects
AO4 contexts
relate texts to their social, cultural and historical contexts; explain how texts have been influential and significant to self and other readers in different contexts and at different time …?

4. English Literature – Shakespeare/Literary Heritage Assessment Criteria
Band 5 33–40 -‘Sophisticated/ impressive’. Candidates demonstrate:
sophisticated engagement with writers’ ideas and attitudes
sophisticated interpretations using imaginatively selected supporting textual detail
sophisticated analysis of aspects of language and structure
perceptive and imaginative exploration of links/comparisons
perceptive and imaginative comment on the significance of the contexts
Band 4 25–32 ‘Assured’. Candidates demonstrate:
sustained and developed appreciation of writers’ ideas and provide convincing interpretations using precisely selected supporting textual detail
analysis of aspects of language and structure in convincing detail
assured and developed appreciation of links/comparisons between texts
thoughtful consideration of the significance of the contexts

5. ‘King Lear’: Lessons 1&2 -
Key characters: King Lear, Cordelia, Goneril ,Regan, Kent, Edmund
Key words, terms, concepts: soliloquy, conflict, natural order, justice, feudalism, power and responsibility
‘King Lear’: Lessons 1&2 -
Act I, Scenes I & II
LO: Can I explore characters to understand ideas, themes and settings?
LO: Can I explore plot and themes using drama and role-play?

6. Act I, Scene I – What do you notice
Act I, Scene I – What do you notice? What does this painting tell us about plot and character at the beginning of the play?
Fuseli, Henry. ‘Lear Banishing Cordelia’ (c. 1775)

7. Act I, Scene I – What do you notice
Act I, Scene I – What do you notice? How does the language introduce themes?

8. What feelings do Regan and Goneril express towards their father in Act I, Scene I? Can we trust what they say?
Explode the quotes!

9. What feelings does Cordelia express towards her father in Act I,
Scene I? Can we trust what she says?
Explode the quotes!

10. Act I, Scene II: Edmund’s Soliloquy – What do you notice
Act I, Scene II: Edmund’s Soliloquy – What do you notice? How does the language introduce themes?

11. What feelings does Edmund express towards his father and brother in Act I, Scene II? Can we trust what he says?
Explode the quotes!

12. Do you agree with this statement? Why? Why not?
“Reading a synopsis of Shakespeare's ‘King Lear’ is like watching an Eastenders Christmas Special without knowing the characters, and while much becomes clear in the theatre, the soap analogy holds. Shakespeare shows us some universal truths about human relationships, in this case, the resentments and power struggles within families.”

13. S&L Presentations AO1 Speaking and listening
Speak to communicate clearly and purposefully; structure and sustain talk, adapting it to different situations and audiences; use standard English and a variety of techniques as appropriate
Listen and respond to speakers’ ideas and perspectives, and how they construct and express meanings
Interact with others, shaping meanings through suggestions, comments and questions and drawing ideas together
Create and sustain different roles

14. Band 5 13-15 -‘Sophisticated/ impressive’. Candidates demonstrate:
English Literature – Speaking and Listening ‘Creating and sustaining roles’ Assessment Criteria
Band ‘Sophisticated/ impressive’. Candidates demonstrate:
  create complex characters and fulfil the demands of challenging roles through insightful choice of dramatic approaches
explore and respond to complex ideas, issues and relationships in varied formal and informal scenarios
Band ‘Confident, assured’. Candidates demonstrate:
create convincing characters and roles using a range of carefully selected verbal and non-verbal techniques
respond skilfully and sensitively in different situations and scenarios, to explore ideas and issues and relationships

15. Group Task (Groups of 3-4) Act I, Scene I / II: S&L - Creating and sustaining roles
You have viewed, read and analysed the opening scenes of ‘King Lear’, in which a King divides his kingdom amongst his daughters, according to their declarations of love for him, and a son convinces his father that another son plans to betray him.
Soap operas like Eastenders often deal with family and domestic issues. Try to devise a short (3-4 min) modern day equivalent of Act I, Scene I of Lear (e.g. a father or mother dividing his or her will, property or their business empire) or Act I, Scene II (a son or daughter convincing his or her parents that a sibling plans to betray them.)

16. ‘King Lear’: Lessons 3&4 -
Key characters: King Lear, Kent, The Fool, Goneril , Regan, Oswald, Albany
Key words, terms, concepts: soliloquy, conflict, natural order, role reversal, power and responsibility, appearance vs. reality (‘sight’ and ‘seeing’), ‘nothing’
‘King Lear’: Lessons 3&4 -
Act I, Scenes II - V
LO: Can I select and evaluate evidence from a text?
LO: Can I identify and comment on emerging themes?

17. Edmund’s Second Soliloquy What does it tell us about his view of the world and about his status as an illegitimate son?
This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune,--often the surfeit of our own behaviour,--we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as if we were villains by necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star! My father compounded with my mother under the dragon's tail; and my nativity was under Ursa major; so that it follows, I am rough and lecherous. Tut, I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing.

18. Paired reading of Act I, Scene II: Introduction to Edgar
Paired reading of Act I, Scene II: Introduction to Edgar. Make notes in response to these questions!
In pairs, read Edmund’s trickery of his brother Edgar in Act I, Scene III.
As you are reading, and using your knowledge of the whole of ‘King Lear’ think about these questions:
What do you make of Edgar in this scene? Support ideas with quotes.
How do you think audiences and critics have responded to Edgar over the centuries? Support ideas with quotes.
What is Edgar’s status, in the eyes of other characters and the audience, by the end of the play?
Mortimer, John Hamilton. 'Edgar,' 1775

19. Act I, Scene III & IV: Goneril’s displeasure with Lear
Refer to key words, terms and concepts for this lesson while examining these scenes.
Pre reading
From your knowledge of Act I (i.e. having seen it) do you think Lear behaves in a reasonable way after he divides his Kingdom?
While reading
What evidence is there in Goneril’s speech of a role reversal in the parent / child relationship?
Find at least two instances of Lear losing his temper in Scene IV (look at his confrontations with Oswald, Goneril and Albany). What triggers his anger and how does he express it?
After reading
What evidence is there that Goneril has a plan or plot against her father? Referring to Act I Scene I, suggest whether this plot was in place all along, or whether it has been devised as a reaction to Lear’s riotous behaviour.
Read Scene III and read Goneril’s confrontation with Lear in Scene IV

20. Act I, Scene IV: Voices of Reason - Kent and King Lear’s Fool
Refer to key words, terms and concepts for this lesson while examining this scene.
Pre reading
Why do you think Kent, having been exiled (banished) by Lear, is so desperate to remain beside him?
While reading
How does the disguised Kent befriend Lear and convince him to let him follow him? What does this tell us about the king?
After reading
Re-read Lear’s fool’s speeches. How does he provide an honest and wise commentary on Lear’s situation? How does he use metaphor, humour and song to do so?
Read Scene IV

21. Act I, Scene IV & V: King Lear becomes self-aware
Refer to key words, terms and concepts for this lesson while examining these scenes.
Pre-reading: Thinking about stagecraft
Representing Lear’s hundred knights on stage is one of the biggest challenges a director faces with this play. How do you think Shakespearean and modern directors have achieved this?
While reading
Lear is ordered to halve his army of knights within a fortnight. How does he react?
Find a) Speech which suggests Lear realises his folly (foolishness), and b) Speech from the Fool which tries to make sense of the events (examine figurative language / metaphor / analogy).
After reading
In these scenes the Fool cautions Lear about his unnatural, unfatherly and unkingly behaviour. To what extent do you think the Fool has a point?
Read Scene IV, from where Lear re-enters the scene, and Scene V

22. Envoys Send one from your group to a group who looked at a different scene. Remember, envoys must catch up on the notes they miss!
In a sense, Lear’s fool wisely commentates on the action and says what the audience (particularly an Elizabethan audience) might be thinking. Look at his first speech, for instance…

23. Plenary: What do you think Lear would say to Cordelia if she was still in England at the end of the first act?