Southern Nevada Regional Professional Development Program
Reading Literature - My Last Dutchess
Draw back the curtain, add a spot of joy to your class, and let learners be lessoned by a close reading exercise that models how to develop an interpretation based on evidence drawn from a text. Robert Browning’s dramatic monologue “My...
California Shakespeare Theater
Hamlet Teacher's Guide
Even those experienced teachers of Hamlet can find much to like in a guide that offers many fresh ideas for activities. Class members may take on the role of FBI profilers that investigate Claudius and Hamlet as murderers, or designers...
Penguin Books
A Teacher's Guide to the Signet Classic Edition of William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure
Trying to get a hold on the author's intent in Measure for Measure can be a problem—no wonder the drama is considered one of Shakespeare's "problem" plays. This guide provides instructors with information about why the play is considered...
Curated OER
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead: Reader's Theatre
Plays are meant to be performed! After reading the entire play, invite your learners to choose a scene from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead that relates to earlier class discussion about characters, motifs, and themes to interpret...
Maine Content Literacy Project
Introduction to Ernest Hemingway
What is a white elephant, and what does it have to do with Ernest Hemingway? Study "Hills Like White Elephants" in-depth by following the procedures outlined in this lesson, the fifth in a series of fourteen. Learners start the day with...
Maine Content Literacy Project
Dramatic Structure of the Short Story
The second lesson in a series of fourteen, this plan takes the short story basics a step further. Learners complete a quiz about the story from the previous day, discuss the text, learn about Anton Chekhov, and work in groups to begin...
Folger Shakespeare Library
Julius Caesar Curriculum Guide
You needn't beware using Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in your classroom. You, too, can be valiant and let loose your young actor's creativity, guided by the suggestions in a curriculum guide so filled with a delightful mix of elements...
Penguin Books
A Teacher's Guide to William Shakespeare's Hamlet
Should Hamlet avenge his father's death? Is the ghost telling the truth or is it trying to trick Hamlet? Is Hamlet's inconsistent behavior a ploy or is he really insane? Something really is rotten in Denmark, and with the help of the...
Curated OER
Exploring the Expository Scenes in Macbeth
Students examine the function of exposition in play structure. They will be able to develop multiple interpretations and visual and aural production choices for Shakespearean scenes and choose those that are most interesting.
Curated OER
Body Language
The power of signs and signals. Viewers use various body parts to illustrate how gestures convey meaning and how the meaning of these gestures may differ among racial and cultural groups, between men and women, or have meaning to...
Curated OER
It's All in the Translation
Students compare and contrast translations of Greek literature. In this dramatic literature lesson plan, students read and perform passages from four different translations of Euripides's Hecuba. Students discuss how the translations...
Curated OER
How Tragic!
Learners study and interpret a classical tragedy and role play a character from the play. In this tragedy lesson, students discuss a specific work to discover the form, structure, and characteristics of the genre and interpret the...
Curated OER
Thrusting Greatness Upon the Television 2
High schoolers create mini-scenes using two random lines from Orsino's speech. For this Twelfth Night lesson, students are given random lines from Orsino's speech and create a skit using their given lines at the beginning and the end of...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Hamlet Meets Chushingura: Traditions of the Revenge Tragedy
Students read texts, view film and video and conduct research in an analysis and comparison of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" and the Kabuki piece "Chushingura". They focus their analysis on the theme of revenge.
Lesson Locker
Macbeth: Act Four Questions for Study
Readers of Macbeth can use these study questions to keep track of key events in Act IV of Shakespeare’s tragedy. Consider adding interpretative and evaluative questions to encourage analysis and critical thinking skills.
BBC
Julius Caesar Teacher Pack
A great actor has the ability to make or break a play. A series of lesson plans related to William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar looks closely at the choices actors make during a production of the play to help provide insight into the...
Curated OER
Famous Death Lines
High schoolers examine Shakespeare's language. They select and explore death scenes from plays that they're familiar with and practice delivering famous death lines to one another. They should attempt to recreate the emotions that they...
Curated OER
The Great Gatsby
Students participate in a reader's theater, adapting scenes from The Great Gatsby. In this reading comprehension lesson plan, students interpret a given scene from The Great Gatsby in a readers' theater. Students analyze the scene for...
Curated OER
Examining Redemption in King Lear
Students examine the concept of the tragic hero in Shakespeare's King Lear and explore how it affects the plot of the play. In this theatrical analysis lesson, students investigate the redemption or defeat of King Lear and perform two...
Curated OER
Literature: It's a Mad, Mad Macbeth
Students determine how the themes expressed in Macbeth are also applicable to contemporary society. They complete a series of written assignments demonstrating their comprehension of theme, content, and interpretation of the play....
Curated OER
MND Sound Ball Activity
Students are introduced to Act II, scene 1, lines 188-244 of "A Midsummer Night's Dream." They explore and analyze how dramatic lines can have varied interpretations by playing a game of sound ball utilizing a list of vocabulary words...
Speak Truth to Power
Jamie Nabozny: Bullying: Language, Literature and Life
Class members identify bullying in contemporary texts and role play how they might change those scenes to examples of anti-bullying. They then re-define their initial definitions of bullying and discuss what they would like to see as...
Curated OER
Reading Pictures, Seeing Poetry
Learners examine the painting, The Combat of the Giaour and Hassan based on a poem by Lord Byron. They compare how Romantic artists and writers made choices about visual elements and language to depict their subjects.
Curated OER
Picturing America: Images and Words of Hope from Romare Bearden and Langston Hughes
A carefully crafted three-day instructional activity integrates poetry and visual art. By analyzing and comparing Langston Hughes' poem "Mother and Son" and Romare Bearden's collage "The Dove," readers explore the theme of hope. The...