DTA | Shakespeare :: Drama Lesson Plans

Acting Shakespeare Style

by Lindsay Price

Students will perform a modern scene the same way that Shakespearean actors performed text. They will also compare and contrast the experience to preparing a scene for class.

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Slide Deck Lesson 3

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Acting Shakespeare Style

by Lindsay Price

Students will perform a modern scene the same way that Shakespearean actors performed text. They will compare and contrast the experience to preparing a scene for class.

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As a class, students will explore the tools of context, meaning of words, and imagery to unlock meaning in a Shakespearean text. Students will then use these tools to create a modern translation for their text. Students will also be introduced to resources and begin work on a monologue that they will continue to use throughout the unit.

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Approaching the Text

by Anna Porter

As a class, students will explore context, the meaning of words, and imagery used to unlock meaning in a Shakespearean text. Students will use these tools to create a modern translation for their own text. Students are also introduced to resources and will become familiar with their story through doing the Actor’s Homework.

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Character Development in the Shakespearean Monologue

by Lindsay Price

To demonstrate how modern character development exercises apply to Shakespearean characters. Students apply exercises to a character from Shakespeare by examining at the character’s foreground and background, answering character questions, and creating the character’s physicality. This will demystify the process of preparing a Shakespearean monologue and give students the tools they need to prepare a monologue on their own.

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Close Reading: Shakespeare

by Lindsay Price

Close reading is a text-dependent analysis tool that allows students to read a text for in-depth comprehension. Students focus on the text to understand what’s being said, how it’s being said, and why. This tool can be an excellent method for getting students to connect to Shakespeare. Where students take a left turn with understanding Shakespeare is that they can’t see past the language. They can’t see using the same tools analyzing a Shakespeare play as they would a modern play. So use close reading to break the language down, move past it, and treat Shakespeare like a modern text.

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Compare and Contrast: "To Be or Not To Be" on Film

by Lindsay Price

In this lesson plan, students will compare four different film versions of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark using the same scene: Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” speech. How do the four versions tackle the same text? Film is a visual medium – what visuals do they use to tell the story? Do they cut or adapt any of the text? Students will discuss their findings and write a Reflection. A slide deck is provided as part of the materials for this lesson.

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Finding Emotion and Action in Text

by Anna Porter

Students will explore Outbursts, Action Words, and Emotion Words through structured activity and textual analysis.

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Finding Emotion and Action in the Text

by Anna Porter

Students will explore emotional outbursts, action words, and emotion words by doing a structured activity and textual analysis.

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Imagery and Insults

by Anna Porter

Students will use insults and compliments to explore sound and imagery created in Shakespeare’s texts. Students will also practice this form, then create a short scenario where they must use their voice and body to bring Shakespeare’s imagery to life to achieve a specific emotional response.

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Introduction to Shakespeare

by Anna Porter

Students will take a pre-quiz on some of Shakespeare’s plays, then find 5 things they did not already know about Shakespeare during a group discussion and presentation. This lesson includes a presentation for students to introduce Shakespeare and his time period.

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Memorization Quiz and Preview

by Anna Porter

Students will take a memorization quiz and perform for their peers. Students will also critique each other based on what they have worked on during this unit.

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Paint with Words: Imagery and Insults

by Anna Porter

Students will use insults and compliments to explore sound and imagery in Shakespeare’s texts. Students will also participate in a choral reading, then create a short scenario where they must use their voice and body to bring Shakespeare’s imagery to life to achieve a specific emotional response.

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Performance

by Anna Porter

Students will demonstrate their understanding of textual analysis, painting with words and imagery, creating a character, and preparing a monologue by performing a Shakespearean monologue and reflecting on their experience.

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Performance

by Anna Porter

Students will demonstrate their understanding of textual analysis, painting with words and imagery, and physicalizing punctuation by preparing and performing a staged reading of a Shakespearean monologue in a group presentation.

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Group Presentation Rubric

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Performing a Monologue with Focus and Stage Pictures

by Anna Porter

Students will review how to use stage pictures that communicate character, story, and emotion to help them create appropriate blocking for their performance. Students will create an appropriate focus for their character to look at while performing their monologue.

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Preparing a Character for Performance Part One - Tools, Objectives, Tactics

by Anna Porter

Students use their Actor’s Homework Sheet to create a personal word list to explore their character. They will also identify how they will use voice and body to bring their character to life. Finally, students review character objective and tactics in order to create an objective statement with three active tactics they will use with their monologue.

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Tactics List

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Preparing a Character for Performance Part Two - Laban's Efforts

by Anna Porter

Students explore and play with Laban’s Efforts, then select efforts to use in their monologue.

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Laban's Efforts

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Punctuation

by Anna Porter

Students will dissect, analyze, and color code punctuation examples. Students will use physical movement that is tied to specific punctuation to help them explore how it can communicate meaning in the text. Students will then apply this and analyze their monologue by examining the punctuation.

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Punctuation

by Anna Porter

Students will learn the clues and meaning behind the punctuation that Shakespeare used. Students will also dissect, analyze, and color code examples. They will also use physical movement tied to specific punctuation to help them explore how it can communicate meaning in the text. Students will then apply this and analyze their performance script by examining their punctuation.

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Selecting Material

by Anna Porter

Students will select a monologue to use in this performance unit during the class period. They will also work in groups to create an entertaining and educational performance based off of a plot summary for one of Shakespeare’s plays.

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Shakepeare's Words: Iambic Pentameter

by Kerry Hishon

The objective of the lesson is for students to learn what iambic pentameter is and to have the opportunity to create their own monologues using iambic pentameter. This lesson is a useful complement towards studying classical works by playwrights such as William Shakespeare.

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Shakespeare Setting and Soundscape

by Lisa Houston

In Elizabethan times, audiences at the Globe had to use their powers of imagination and listening to envision the worlds of Shakespeare’s plays. Today, modern audiences are treated to elaborate depictions of Shakespeare’s settings with expensive sets, lighting, projections, and sound. This lesson will test your students’ creative collaboration. They will design a set and soundscape in obstacle course form for one of Shakespeare’s plays using found objects, sounds, and actions.

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Shakespeare Setting and Soundscape

by Lisa Houston

Students work together to create and explore an obstacle-course setting and soundscape for one of Shakespeare’s plays.

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Slide Deck Lesson 4

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Shakespeare Tableaux

by Karen Loftus

Sometimes it’s less intimidating for students to approach Shakespeare’s language with a goal in mind. In this exercise students are given a line from a Shakespeare play out of context and asked to create a scene using three tableaux that tell a story. By approaching the language with an active goal in mind, students delve deeper into the language’s meaning and take control of the story.

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Shakespeare: Finding Emotion and Action in Text

by Anna Porter

Students will use textual analysis to explore how to uncover the clues that Shakespeare left in his text. They will apply this knowledge to a monologue.

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Shakespeare: Finding Emotion and Action in Text

by Anna Porter

Students will understand how to uncover the directorial clues that Shakespeare left in his work by doing a textual analysis. They will explore Emotional Outbursts, Action words, and Emotion words through a structured color coding analysis of a Shakespeare monologue.

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Shakespeare: Tableaux

by Karen Loftus

Students interact with Shakespeare’s language out of context to create expressive tableaux that tell a simple unrelated story.

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Slide Deck Lesson 2

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Shakespearean Language: Match the Quotes

by Lindsay Price

Students will identify unfamiliar words on a page of Shakespeare quotes, translate those quotes into modern English, and act out the quotes to identify character/play clues. Students will then complete a quotes assignment and reflection. Plus! Bonus assignment.

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Unit Project: Performing a Shakespearean Scene

by Matt Webster

Students analyze, rehearse, and perform Shakespearean scenes using the concepts introduced over the course of the unit.

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Slide Deck Lesson 5

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