Shakespeare: Performance First

O, that these too, too obscure words would resolve themselves into modern English! High school scholars are asked to do a close reading of Hamlet’s first soliloquy (I, ii) and recast these famous lines into contemporary speech, identify...

Disguises and role playing are the focus of a resource that uses Shakespeare’s As You Like It, Twelfth Night, and Henry IV, Part I, to demonstrate how we all play many parts in our lives; how we all are “merely players.” The many...

No one knows the whole story surrounding Julius Caesar's death, but William Shakespeare's version of the event is certainly entertaining. A curriculum guide designed to accompany Julius Caesar makes the text even more engaging by...

Make The Taming of the Shrew modern and relevant with this outline. Small groups can choose from a list of suggested scenes and update with modern language and settings before acting them out. Great questions refine writing and...

A PowerPoint fill-in-the-blanks exam that tests learners knowledge of the life and times of William Shakespeare? Why not? The presentation could be used as a general review or as an introductory activity to assess prior knowledge.

Before he was a parrot in Aladdin, Iago was the perfect villain in a Shakespearean play. A study guide introduces theater goers to Othello by providing them with a summary of the plot and overview of the characters. After watching a...

"I all alone beweep my outcast state." After a discussion of the "Shakespeare in American Life" segment in which Maya Angelou's relates her reaction to Sonnet 29, class groups create and perform a scene about an outcast that includes the...

Did you know that Green Eggs and Ham is written in iambic pentameter? Model the rhythm of language using Dr. Seuss’s tale. Direct class members to march about the room tapping their right foot on the first syllable and stomping their...

Where did actors perform plays during Shakespeare's era? Using the handout, pupils learn about London's historical Globe Theatre and discover which of Shakespeare's plays actors performed there. Scholars also explore the cause of the...

Students explore current events by completing a list of worksheet activities. For this William Shakespeare lesson, students identify a resident of China who wishes to undergo plastic surgery to give himself the face of William...