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This page updated: 23 January 2006 |
FIRST TIME WITH SHAKESPEARE Kerrie Leech
Introduction and overview of unit
In many secondary schools, Shakespeare is not introduced until Year 10 or equivalent (when students are about 15), especially when classes are organised on a mixed ability basis. To cater successfully for high ability and/or interested students in such a whole-class situation, it is necessary first and foremost to stimulate in the whole group enthusiasm for reading Shakespeare. Since many students are commonly decidedly uninterested in such a task, I have elected in this unit to teach a section on Shakespeare's life, times and productivity concurrently with the play reading, which in this case is The Taming of the Shrew.
The 25-lesson unit was designed to be taught over a five-week period, though the actual number of weeks necessary may need to be modified for any particular class.
Prerequisites
Prior experience with group activities - discussion, consensus-reaching, and completion of tasks - is necessary. The unit tasks are too detailed and subject-oriented to be completed by students inexperienced in group co-operation, though they are suitable for a very motivated and talented student.
Expected outcomes
The following outcomes should be achieved:
o an understanding of the nature of entertainment, then and now
o an awareness of the importance of Shakespeare's life and the setting of Renaissance London for the early success of Shakespeare's work and its survival through to today
o knowledge of the differences among plays with themes expressed through comedy, tragedy and history
o development of listening, reading and talking skills
o experience in observation, comprehension and consequential thinking.
Timetable
The following structure was designed to fit a five-period timetable: one period on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and a double period on Thursdays.
Week 1
Monday Introduce topic and tasks, create groups, begin group tasks
Wednesday Continue group tasks
Thursday First period: begin play reading
Second period: continue group tasks
Friday First 20 minutes: play reading
Second 20 minutes: continue group tasks
Week 2
Monday First 20 minutes: play reading
Second 20 minutes: continue group tasks
Wednesday Continue group tasks
Thursday Group presentations and class evaluation
Friday First 20 minutes: play reading
Second 20 minutes: groups self-evaluate and revise
Week 3
Monday Play reading
(Deadline for presentation of publishable group tasks)
Wednesday Complete play reading
Release and distribute class book
Individual reading of class book
Hand out individual survey questionnaires
Thursday Return surveys
Whole-class viewing of Zeffirelli's The Taming of the Shrew
Voluntary continuation of viewing into lunchtime
Friday Play-related group work - settings, plot, characterisation
Week 4
Monday - Friday ... Play-related group activitiesFriday
Week 5
Monday- Friday ... Final assessment preparation (individual, written)
Formation of groups
For the best possible achievement of the tasks, I prefer skills groups, each based on one of Gardner's multiple intelligences. However skills groups do not allow group members to extend their weaker intelligences. The particular class for which I designed this unit had both high and low achievers presenting as unmotivated and behaviourally difficult and I felt heterogeneous groups were a risky option for the most difficult unit of Junior English. So I decided on a compromise of skills groups with the proviso that final assessment had to be done individually over a selection of language areas, requiring students to extend themselves in 'weak' intelligences.
Students can either read the activity sheets and nominate for the group tasks they find most interesting and/or enjoyable, or the teacher can allocate students to groups based on an assessment of their multiple intelligences profile. Each group needs a minimum of two and a maximum of five people.
Group activities
Group 1 (Linguistic)
1. o Write a list of what you know, what you would like to know, and what puzzles you about:
~ Shakespeare's life and times
~ the plays Shakespeare wrote.
o Find information to answer what you would like to know.
o As a group, brainstorm solutions to what puzzles you.
2. o Find out three interesting things about the way people spoke English in Elizabethan England.
o Write a sentence as an example of each aspect.
o Translate each sentence into modern English.
3. o Compile a glossary of 10-15 words commonly found in Shakespeare's plays that are not used today.
o Provide a translation for each word.
Group 2 (Logical)
1. Create a time line of Shakespeare's life. Include on it any major events that affected England or London as a whole.
2. o Find the distance in miles from Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire to London.
o Convert this distance to kilometres.
o Find a destination of equivalent distance from your home town.
o Calculate how long this journey would take you by car.
o Now see if you can calculate how long it would have taken by carriage between Stratford and London.
3. o Obtain a copy of the list of Shakespeare's plays from Group 1.
o Divide the plays into three groups: comedies, tragedies, histories.
o How many plays in each group?
o Look at the known dates of each first performance and represent the three types of play by three differently coloured dots on a Venn diagram where each circle represents a period of time chosen by you.
o What do you notice about the clusters of dates relative to the types of plays?
o Brainstorm reasons why a pattern you have uncovered (or absence of a pattern!) might have been so.
4. o Find out approximately how many people lived in London in the 1590s.
o How many were there in 1605?
o List reasons for the differences in population.
o How might the change have affected social and cultural life in London?
Group 3 (Visual)
1. o Collect illustrations or draw a typical head-to-toe outfit from the 1590s for:
~ a wealthy woman
~ a wealthy man
~ a common city-dwelling person
o Find out what materials were used, how the clothes might have been made, and how clothes and other household items were stored.
2. o Draw the ground plan and front view of a typical commoner's house in Elizabethan London.
o Describe the construction, and the cooking and sleeping facilities.
o How did people see at night?
o How did they get fresh water and dispose of their sewage?
3. o Find a map of London from the 1590s.
o Transfer it onto an A3 sheet of paper.
o Locate and label the important features and buildings.
o Mark the locations of the theatres and name them.
o Why are the theatres located where they are?
4. o Compile a lists of Shakespeare's plays available as videos in the school library or in town.
o Individually or as a group, watch any one of the movies (except The Taming of the Shrew) and write a review. Give a star rating out of five stars.
Group 4 (Musical)
1. o For the presentation, prepare a musical program for an Elizabethan royal pageant. You will need music for the royal procession, the feature musical performance, the play, and the dance.
o Record each piece.
o Explain why you chose each piece and the manner in which you think it should be presented (eg number of musicians, how they should be arranged, where they should be seated).
o For one of the pieces selected, find out on what instruments it might have been performed. Find some pictures of typical Elizabethan instruments to illustrate your explanation.
2. o Find a common Elizabethan superstition or saying and explain how/why it might have evolved.
OR
o Find a nursery rhyme that you can identify as having Elizabethan origins and explain why you think it was popular.
Group 5 (Kinaesthetic)
1. o Draw or trace an interior view of The Globe Theatre as the actors play to a packed house.
o Label the various people who are there, why they are where they are, and what they are doing.
2. Describe how you would solve the problems of producing a play at The Globe, in particular:
o dressing rooms - their size and the difficulty in getting actors to and from the stage
o scripts - without photocopying or printing, how do the actors learn their lines? How does the crew ensure that the lines are said in the correct order?
o cast - what size can the theatre company support? What talents would they need to have?
o props - considering the open stage, what sort of props would be most suitable and affordable?
o lighting - with no electricity and a highly flammable theatre (wood and straw), how can the stage be lit adequately?
o changing sets/ removing actors (dead and alive) from the stage - again considering the open stage, how is the change from one scene to another effected?
Group 6 (Intrapersonal)
This activity is a hypothetical game in which you, as a group, must decide on the best course of action.
1. You are close to finishing High School and are unsure of what to do with the rest of your life. However, you have always loved entertainment of all kinds. Even as a small child you loved puppet shows, the circus, and the Arts Council visits to the school. You used to hang around the actors after their performances asking them strings of questions. Lately you have been watching movies of any type and any era. You start writing down your own ideas for movies you create in your imagination. So you decide that you might like to try something in the entertainment industry.
o To help you think about the pros and cons of all the possibilities, write a list of all the forms of entertainment you can think of. To qualify as an entertainment, the form must:
~ be fun and/or relaxing and/or make you forget where you are
~ cause you to experience emotions that are not necessarily your own at that particular time
~ say something that is meaningful to you.
o Decide and justify which one you would prefer to pursue.
2. Your father, who has only a small amount of money but some powerful friends in government and business, suggests he could help you pursue your choice by supporting you in Sydney for six months and by arranging introductions to some important people who might be able to help you get started. You are concerned because:
o you have never before been to a big city
o the Prime Minister, whom your father knows and who lives in Sydney, is about to take Australia to war with New Zealand over the right to mine titanium from the earth's richest deposit, newly discovered on a small Pacific island.
o if you do go, you risk catching the fatal and incurable disease that has been introduced into Sydney by people returning from the island.
On the other hand:
o while you know little about it, you are dying to get in touch with the latest fad influencing fashion, art, music, social life and religion. Some people are saying that there should be more island religious people to help those wishing to convert from traditional religions and the new Prime Minister has even taken to wearing sarongs on official occasions.
o you know that the best - and maybe only - chance of making it in your career is to go to Sydney now. You have lots of ideas from your past that you carry in a journal, just waiting to be converted into a smash hit. All you need is to learn more about what people want for entertainment.
So you decide to go. Shortly after you arrive in Sydney, Australia and New Zealand do go to war and, after a short and fierce battle, Australia wins. The whole city is ecstatic. In what ways might you use this victory and the fashions it has further encouraged as resource material for your first great production?
3. You meet the Prime Minister at a party for which your father has arranged an invitation. The Prime Minister tells you he is bored with the trend in your chosen form of entertainment, that he feels entertainment should not tell people how to live and should be exciting or funny.
o How do you answer the Prime Minister?
o What course of action would you take after the party?
4. People are pouring into Sydney from all over the Pacific. The city has become the centre of trade and commerce for the Pacific-Asia Rim. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister, who has become very interested in your ideas, arranges a grant for you to create your Great Production.
o What will be the subject of the production?
o What is its main story line?
o What types of characters will it have in it?
o Bearing in mind that you have only recently arrived in this city, how do you research for the production?
5. Despite some outspoken criticism from other producers of your chosen field of entertainment (eg 'an upstart from the country', 'a one-hit wonder'), your Great Production is a huge success. With your new wealth you reluctantly leave Sydney for home to escape the disease that by now has killed hundreds of thousands of people. Back home you fall in love with a wealthy person from a neighbouring town.
o Describe the next three years of your life, particularly what you do with your time, how you invest your money, and your family life.
6. Eventually you return to Sydney when the worst of the disease has passed and when you can no longer ignore the Prime Minister who is begging you to return to make more Great Productions. He even offers a business deal: shares in your own production company if you will produce the type of entertainment he enjoys.
o Do you accept?
o As a result of your decision, briefly describe the course of your career until you retire or die.
Group 7 (Interpersonal)
This group will be responsible for:
o reading carefully all group tasks then collecting together as quickly as possible resources for the other groups to use in their research in the classroom. Resources could be books and videos from the school library, public library or other source, such as the families of class members; and various people, eg some teachers could assist in locating harder-to-find resources such as maps
o arranging a class presentation of the work of each of the other groups
o preparing a publication of all the information gathered so that each class member has a copy for reference and preparation for final assessment.
For both live presentation and publication, and after consulting with each group, you as a group must decide on the order of appearance, the format, whether individual groups can use the overhead projector or other props, and so on. Whatever is necessary for the presentation must be in place on the day.
The date for class presentations is [next Thursday]. The date for the release of the publication is [the following Wednesday].
It is your job to preview each presentation. If your group is unhappy with the standard of work of any group, or if your group disagrees with any other group over the nature of their presentation or aspect of the publication, it is up to your group to find ways to reach agreement with that group by compromise and negotiation.
The quality and entertainment value of the presentation and the quality and usefulness of the publication are ultimately your responsibility.
For both the presentation and the publication, you can make suggestions to both groups and the teacher, but it is up to you to negotiate a final format, as above. The teacher will help you wherever possible to access resources.
Assessment of group tasks
The whole class and teacher participate in assessment as follows:
o an 8-person 'expert' evaluation panel, made up of one democratically elected member from each group and the teacher, judges each group's presentation using the following criteria:
~ depth - evidence of thorough research and preparation for presentation
~ scope - consideration of more than one aspect of the task under scrutiny
~ communication - how easy it was to understand the main points of each item
~ presentation - use of voice, body, props (including audio-visual aids) to enhance meaning, interest, and audience absorption.
o after the presentation, panel members take turns to comment to the class on the panel's reactions to each group's section, according to the criteria above. The class may agree, disagree, discuss, question, debate with the panel or the group responsible for the presentation.
o the class is the 'viewing audience'. According to the criteria, each class member (including the original judging panel) then votes for what each considers to be the best presentation. The winning group selects a title, then designs and produces the cover of the class book in a format useable for publication by the Monday following presentations.
o Modification - before groups submit their work to Group 7 for publication, they have Friday and the weekend to change any aspect of their written presentation, carry out additional research, redraw, rewrite, edit or prepare a new final draft. Late changes must be shown to the teacher before final draft and submission.
Final whole-unit activities
The activities to conclude the unit are designed to allow you to deduce/induce, predict and theorise, giving you the opportunity to demonstrate your ability to see relationships in your learning and to be comfortable with complex ways of thinking.
You have the choice of selecting any three tasks, but two must come from Group A and one must come from Group B. Each answer should be between 300 and 400 words, unless it is a concept map.
Group A
1. Pretend Petruchio and Katherina are finalists pitted against each other in Olympic competition.
o Score their verbal bouts in Act 1 Scene 1 (lines 177-288) and Act 4 Scene 3 (lines 36-189). As the referee in this Olympic clash, to whom would you award the gold medal? Why?
o From these two extracts of the play, what view of women and men do you think Shakespeare is trying to convey to his audience?
2. If you could choose in real life to be anyone from the play, which character would you pick? Why?
3. Take a closer look at The Induction and indulge in some hypothetical games:
o What do you think an Elizabethan audience would have thought of The Induction?
o Do you think the play would have had the same meaning were The Induction not there?
o Imagine you had to direct a production of the play. Would you include or cut The Induction?
4. Imagine the relationship between Katherina and Bianca in five years' time after the ending of the play. Write a letter from either one to the other advising her on a love, money or marriage issue that has suddenly come to the fore in one or both of their marriages.
5. Choose any scene from the play.
o What did you enjoy/not enjoy about this scene? Why?
o Discuss the character that interests you most in this scene. How does s/he influence the action? What is her/his relationship to the other characters in the play? (You may present your answer to this part as a concept map if you prefer.)
6. Pretend you are a movie critic. Write a review of Zeffirelli's The Taming of the Shrew, comparing it with the text. Explain to your readers what the differences tell us about attending a performance as opposed to reading a Shakespearean play.
Group B
1. Imagine you are Shakespeare. A close friend at the court of Queen Elizabeth I, called the 'Virgin Queen' because she never married, tells you the Queen has been depressed because of trouble on the northern border with her cousin, the Scottish Queen Mary. Mary has appealed to the Queen for help in putting down her rebellious nobles rampaging through the countryside, plotting against her and disobeying her commands. Meanwhile the same nobles have also appealed to Queen Elizabeth for help in toppling Queen Mary because they say that while she pretends to be a very religious and pure woman she has tried to kill her husband, is having an open affair with a noble, and is leading Scotland into moral ruin. Your friend at court suggests you write a play to make Queen Elizabeth laugh and to show her a possible solution to the problem. You write and produce The Taming of the Shrew. What parallels do you think the Queen might see between her situation and the play?
2. Find a modern popular novel, movie, play, story, poem, painting or song that has similarities to aspects of The Taming of the Shrew.
o Name the piece you have selected and briefly describe its setting, action and characters.
o What are the similarities and differences between the two?
o Which do you prefer? Why?
3. Imagine you have the job of designing the costumes for a performance of The Taming of the Shrew.
o Design a costume for Katherina's wedding dress and Petruchio's wedding outfit.
o Explain the main feature of each and why you included them.
o How do the costumes in the post-wedding scene affect our understanding of the two characters and the messages in the play?
Evaluation
As feedback for the teacher, each student is asked to complete a short questionnaire. The purposes of the survey are:
o to find out how honestly the students engaged with the activities, whether they enjoyed their learning experience, and what problems they might have identified that were not apparent to the teacher
o to obtain feedback useful for modification of future lesson plans
o to foster the 'partnership teaching' relationship which I am keen to promote.
[Kerrie Leech is currently a distance education student at UNE. This unit was designed for one of her practicum classes, in north Queensland.]
|
©TalentEd is
located at the School of Curriculum Studies, |
This page updated: 23 January 2006 |