Studies in ShakespeareRather than dissect a single play and read every line in it for understanding, we watch modern movie versions of the plays and discover Shakespeare from the perspective of audience rather than scholar.
Not every student works with every play, but these are some of the top plays we focus our attention on:
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(This class is coded NCES 11002)
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Shakespeare is intimidating for lots of kids--all those thees and thous! Making a teenager sit down and read a play straight-through (which Shakespeare never intended anyone to do), only confirms to teens that Shakespeare is impossible.
But it's not. The youngest student to take this class was eleven years old, and she loves Shakespeare as a result. By the time she'd completed the class, she'd seen several movie-versions of Shakespeare productions (as required by the class) and then voluntarily watched four of the others. She made a timeline showing the important events in Shakespeare's life, read iambic pentameter, wrote a 5-paragraph paper, watched seven production films and other videos, studied Hamlet (her choice), and summarized a play in a speed-read narrative summary.
In a 14-Week term, these kids ROCK with Shakespeare. Take a look below at some of the Portfolios past students, age 11-16, created (they chose the projects they were most pleased with when they created these Legacy Portfolios).
But it's not. The youngest student to take this class was eleven years old, and she loves Shakespeare as a result. By the time she'd completed the class, she'd seen several movie-versions of Shakespeare productions (as required by the class) and then voluntarily watched four of the others. She made a timeline showing the important events in Shakespeare's life, read iambic pentameter, wrote a 5-paragraph paper, watched seven production films and other videos, studied Hamlet (her choice), and summarized a play in a speed-read narrative summary.
In a 14-Week term, these kids ROCK with Shakespeare. Take a look below at some of the Portfolios past students, age 11-16, created (they chose the projects they were most pleased with when they created these Legacy Portfolios).
Sample Student Portfolios
Astrid's Portfolio: http://myshakespearelegacy.weebly.com
Abbey's Portfolio: http://aworldofshakespeare.weebly.com
"Before I started the class, I thought Shakespeare was just some guy who talked weird and wrote plays back in the old days... it turns out I was completely wrong. This class gave me a bit more than just a background to Shakespeare. I now know quite a bit about Shakespeare and his plays. This class was really fun because not only did we learn about Shakespeare, but we got to do fun little assignments along the way. I've done a lot of stuff on Shakespeare that I, personally, am very proud of. I've made a timeline of Shakespeare's life, a summary of one of his plays, I've learned Romeo and Juliet from start to finish (my choice) and so much more. Good luck with the course! My advice to the next group of students would be to just have fun!"
Jesse's Portfolio: http://shakespeareslegacy.weebly.com
"I wasn't at all a Shakespeare lover before this course but during this class, I realized that Shakespeare can be very entertaining and funny. When you go to my legacy site; you'll see that most of the projects are summaries of plays that we've watched throughout this class. I'm especially proud of my Word Clouds, The Dramatic Decision, Hamlet's Greatest Soliloquy and Did It Myself Hamlet Summary projects. I'm also proud of all my other projects but these I feel are my best."
Wyatt's Portfolio: http://freeandeasydown.weebly.com
"This class is probably the most interesting and enjoyable way to learn about Shakespeare. I learned so much about Shakespeare's life and his writing style. He used a lot of play-on-words. He used a lot of historical stories and made characters up and changed the importance of others."
Astrid's Portfolio: http://myshakespearelegacy.weebly.com
Abbey's Portfolio: http://aworldofshakespeare.weebly.com
"Before I started the class, I thought Shakespeare was just some guy who talked weird and wrote plays back in the old days... it turns out I was completely wrong. This class gave me a bit more than just a background to Shakespeare. I now know quite a bit about Shakespeare and his plays. This class was really fun because not only did we learn about Shakespeare, but we got to do fun little assignments along the way. I've done a lot of stuff on Shakespeare that I, personally, am very proud of. I've made a timeline of Shakespeare's life, a summary of one of his plays, I've learned Romeo and Juliet from start to finish (my choice) and so much more. Good luck with the course! My advice to the next group of students would be to just have fun!"
Jesse's Portfolio: http://shakespeareslegacy.weebly.com
"I wasn't at all a Shakespeare lover before this course but during this class, I realized that Shakespeare can be very entertaining and funny. When you go to my legacy site; you'll see that most of the projects are summaries of plays that we've watched throughout this class. I'm especially proud of my Word Clouds, The Dramatic Decision, Hamlet's Greatest Soliloquy and Did It Myself Hamlet Summary projects. I'm also proud of all my other projects but these I feel are my best."
Wyatt's Portfolio: http://freeandeasydown.weebly.com
"This class is probably the most interesting and enjoyable way to learn about Shakespeare. I learned so much about Shakespeare's life and his writing style. He used a lot of play-on-words. He used a lot of historical stories and made characters up and changed the importance of others."
Sample Project Checklist (from Week 8 of Studies in Shakespeare)
8-22 (40pts) I AM Bic
Three Links:
Teach yourself all about iambic pentameter, because you'll need to speak some iambs to us in this project.
Create a video of yourself speaking lines of Shakespeare that are written in the "iambic pentameter" format of blank verse. Not all of the plays are in blank verse--you'll find whole sections where it's plain text or spoken in rhyme.
You'll pick out 10 lines from your selected Tragedy and speak them into the video. Two lines may be together if they form a sentence, but not three. Take lines from throughout the play, and especially choose lines that are turning-points in the plot or help to flesh out the characters--important lines.
But SOFT, what LIGHT through YONder WINdow BREAKS is an obvious one to choose, if you're on R&J. In that case you'd stick with just that line and choose other lines from other passages.
Then to record your voice . . .
1) You might do a screen recording with my favorite screencapture Chrome extension, SCREENCASTIFY.
2) Or you might use your CAMERA to take a short video clip and upload it to Youtube (if you've never done that, you might want to try it--it's a little bit addicting). You don't need to be in the picture if you don't want to be: film puppets talking, take a video of your shadow, or just walk next to the creek while spouting random lines from Shakespeare and have the video be incongruous to your voice. But selfies are awesome and I'm tempted to award bonus points! If you need any bonus points and you include yourself in the video, request bonus points as part of your submission. If you don't need bonus points and you include yourself in the video, well, you're just that kid who's naturally awesome, right?
3) Or you might put some pics together and voice-over them in a video slideshow made with your own movie-making software on your computer or http://www.wevideo.com online. The problem with WeVideo is that you can't embed it, so you end up downloading it anyway, and then uploading to your Google Drive, share, and embed.
Of these three, I think #2 is the most straightforward. Grab the camera, set it on video mode, say your lines, and upload the file to Youtube. But then again Screencastify lets you show your screen while you're saying your lines and automatically uploads in one step. That's pretty smooth, too. And creating a movie of still shots with your voice as the narration--that's also a good skill. So many good options!
HEY. If you make a video and put it on GOOGLE DRIVE ... you have to specifically allow people access to view it. K?
PROJECT CHECKLIST
____ Choose 10 lines from your Tragedy that are perfect examples of iambic pentameter.
____ Speak these lines into your camera or computer and post your voice online in a VIDEO format. There are other tools that would just capture your voice, but there is a skill here that I need to be able to refer back to in a future assignment.
____ Your spoken voice must be entirely understandable.
____ You may speak in an accent if you dare. We won't laugh. Okay maybe we'll laugh, but we'll be laughing with you, not at you. Okay, maybe we'll be laughing at you, but it's still a good kind of laughing.
____ Provide the URL for your Portfolio's project-page and this Project Checklist (copy and paste and mark with __x__) in your Turn In area.
8-22 (40pts) I AM Bic
Three Links:
- https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS730US730&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=iambic-pentameter&*
- https://forvo.com/word/iambic_pentameter
- http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=iambic+pentameter
Teach yourself all about iambic pentameter, because you'll need to speak some iambs to us in this project.
Create a video of yourself speaking lines of Shakespeare that are written in the "iambic pentameter" format of blank verse. Not all of the plays are in blank verse--you'll find whole sections where it's plain text or spoken in rhyme.
You'll pick out 10 lines from your selected Tragedy and speak them into the video. Two lines may be together if they form a sentence, but not three. Take lines from throughout the play, and especially choose lines that are turning-points in the plot or help to flesh out the characters--important lines.
But SOFT, what LIGHT through YONder WINdow BREAKS is an obvious one to choose, if you're on R&J. In that case you'd stick with just that line and choose other lines from other passages.
Then to record your voice . . .
1) You might do a screen recording with my favorite screencapture Chrome extension, SCREENCASTIFY.
2) Or you might use your CAMERA to take a short video clip and upload it to Youtube (if you've never done that, you might want to try it--it's a little bit addicting). You don't need to be in the picture if you don't want to be: film puppets talking, take a video of your shadow, or just walk next to the creek while spouting random lines from Shakespeare and have the video be incongruous to your voice. But selfies are awesome and I'm tempted to award bonus points! If you need any bonus points and you include yourself in the video, request bonus points as part of your submission. If you don't need bonus points and you include yourself in the video, well, you're just that kid who's naturally awesome, right?
3) Or you might put some pics together and voice-over them in a video slideshow made with your own movie-making software on your computer or http://www.wevideo.com online. The problem with WeVideo is that you can't embed it, so you end up downloading it anyway, and then uploading to your Google Drive, share, and embed.
Of these three, I think #2 is the most straightforward. Grab the camera, set it on video mode, say your lines, and upload the file to Youtube. But then again Screencastify lets you show your screen while you're saying your lines and automatically uploads in one step. That's pretty smooth, too. And creating a movie of still shots with your voice as the narration--that's also a good skill. So many good options!
HEY. If you make a video and put it on GOOGLE DRIVE ... you have to specifically allow people access to view it. K?
PROJECT CHECKLIST
____ Choose 10 lines from your Tragedy that are perfect examples of iambic pentameter.
____ Speak these lines into your camera or computer and post your voice online in a VIDEO format. There are other tools that would just capture your voice, but there is a skill here that I need to be able to refer back to in a future assignment.
____ Your spoken voice must be entirely understandable.
____ You may speak in an accent if you dare. We won't laugh. Okay maybe we'll laugh, but we'll be laughing with you, not at you. Okay, maybe we'll be laughing at you, but it's still a good kind of laughing.
____ Provide the URL for your Portfolio's project-page and this Project Checklist (copy and paste and mark with __x__) in your Turn In area.
