Students practice their own acting skills. In this Shakespeare lesson, students participate in choral readings and reenact scenes from The Taming of the Shrew. Students then discuss the difficulties of Shakespearean acting.

Students create skits based on pairs of words. For this Twelfth Night lesson, students create a cluster map in which they brainstorm a dialogue/scene based on their word pair. Students perform and record their scenes and discuss...

Young scholars add punctuation to a passage from King Lear and compare their version to the First Folio version.  In this Shakespeare and punctuation lesson, students discuss the difference punctuation can make on a set of...

Students create a family shield for themselves as part of the Montague or Capulet family.  In this Romeo and Juliet lesson, students divide into the two warring clans.  Students each create a shield representing themselves as...

Young scholars use a computer to read text from Shakespeare's "Othello." They attempt to read through his soliloquies, and reduce the amount of words in each bit of text.

Students discuss the sanity of Hamlet and Ophelia in Shakespeare's Hamlet. Students analyze an image from the play to address the sanity of the two characters. Then students read the text to determine whether the characters' words and...

Students recognize ways Shakespeare creates and uses mood augment their analysis of the text and help them in making performance choices. They, in groups, select words, phrases, lines, that reveal their character's mood.

Students form opinions about Gertrude by imaginatively creating 5 entries for Gertrude's journal. Each journal entry reveal much about Gertrude's character at pivotal moments in the play.

High schoolers read Julius Caesar line by line. They discuss what is going on in a particular scene. Each student in a group takes the role of an assassin and comes up with a clear characterization and motivation. They share and watch...

Students read a scene from King Lear and decide collaboratively how best to present it. In doing so, they examine the scenes and the play from multiple perspectives.

High schoolers analyze King Lear's speech and identify his "darker purpose", and let them explore different styles for reading it aloud. They can perform the scene as well.

Students are introduced to Macbeth by having them act out the scene where Duncan's murder is discovered. This activity enable students to use dialogue only to discover the structure and format of a scene and explain plot.

Students examine meter and how Shakespeare uses it in dialogue to show character emotion.

Young scholars act out opening shipwreck scene of The Tempest, or watch and direct others doing it.

Young scholars discuss the changes the characters go through in Shakespeare's play Macbeth. They discuss the themes of the play write an essay comparing current events to the themes of the play.

Students read four of Shakespeare's sonnets and determine whether they are read from Macbeth's or Lady Macbeth's point of view. They support their decision using evidence from the text.

Students read Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale. In groups, they "perform" Act 3, Scenes 1-3 by "striking a pose" that best depicts the characters in that scene and by bringing in music that would best accompany the scene.

In this Shakespeare matching worksheet, student match words associated with the play Romeo and Juliet with the phrases that describe them.

Students identify themes in Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet by analyzing the film or text. In this tolerance lesson, students create their own Elizabethan era terms related to interacting with different social groups. In groups,...

Students read a scene from Twelfth Night and complete close reading activities for the play. In this Shakespeare lesson, students read Act 1, Scene 1 and then define the characterization of Olivia and Duke Orsino. Students discuss the...

Students complete play analysis activities for Act 1 Scene 5 of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. In this play analysis lesson, students read a summary of the scene and complete close reading discuss activities. Students analyze the...

Students perform a close reading analysis of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night Act 2, Scene 1.  Students examine the characters of Sebastian and Antonio and discuss themes, particularly those of the potential for tragedy within a comedy...

Young scholars complete close reading activities for Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. In this Twelfth Night lesson, students read act two, scene three of the play and discuss the characters of Malvolio, Maria, Toby, and Andrew. Young...

Students explore act 2, scene 4 of Twelfth Night. In this Shakespeare lesson, students watch a video segment of the scene and discuss the plot as well as literary devices.