Lesson Plan

To Be or Not to Be: The Evolution of Hamlet’s Personality

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This To Be or Not to Be: The Evolution of Hamlet’s Personality lesson plan also includes:

How does Hamlet's state of mind change over the course of Shakespeare's most famous revenge tragedy? After a close reading of Hamlet's soliloquies in Act III, scene 1 and Act IV, scene iv, class members engage in a Paideia/Socratic seminar and then craft an essay in which they use evidence from the text to support their analysis.

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CCSS: Designed
Instructional Ideas
  • To save copying costs, share the word document of the two soliloquies on Google Classroom
  • Review with class members the Elizabethan concepts of the Great Chain of Being and their belief ghosts could be either telling the truth to aid a character or lying to destroy a character
Classroom Considerations
  • The lesson designed to work with the entire play or with just the two soliloquies
  • A free account is required to access/download some of the instructional materials
  • Set aside some extra prep time to examine the various tabs and links
Pros
  • The resource contains detailed reading strategies for a close reading of the two soliloquies
  • Includes an optional assessment if class members have not read the entire play
Cons
  • None