Today’s Learning Objectives:
• develop knowledge and understanding
of the requirements for teaching
Shakespeare at Key Stage 3
• develop knowledge and understanding
in order to plan a scheme of work to
teach Shakespeare at Key stage 3
• explore pupil misconceptions and
errors with reference to the works of
Shakespeare
Teaching
Shakespeare at Key
Stage 3
• develop a range of strategies to teach
Shakespeare with confidence at Key
Stage 3 so as to ensure that pupils gain
access to the text at their own ability
level
First Contact…
Accessing Difficult Texts:
Understanding Shakespeare
Before the break, you discussed the following with
those near to you:
what strategies might you use to encourage
pupils to read aloud/use Shakespeare’s
language in performance?
what strategies could you use to help pupils
better understand Shakespeare’s language
and its meaning?
Accessing Difficult Texts:
Understanding Shakespeare
Read the soliloquy from Macbeth, Act 2
Scene l.
Suggest one activity you might plan for
use in a lesson to enable pupils to better
understand this particular speech.
Plays as Performance Texts
Why is it important that Shakespeare
is presented in this way to pupils?
What is lost if we overlook this aspect
of the text?
Engaging Pupils: Bringing Shakespeare to Life
Teachers’ TV
Shakespeare Shorts: Pupils Plotting
In this programme, we see the results as schools around the
country respond to a BBC challenge to create a 60-second
version of Shakespeare.
The programme focuses on three Year 9 classes and a special
school dance club as they grapple with performing and
shooting their own photo-story.
After learning to script, storyboard and edit, the children use
free downloaded software and divide into groups, each working
on key scenes from Macbeth.
The results are dramatic; the Bard as never seen before!
Engaging Pupils: Bringing Shakespeare to Life
1. What are the benefits of:
• using ICT to engage pupils with Shakespeare?
• exploring Shakespeare through performance?
2. Do you think that the Key Stage 3 Framework
realistically allows teachers and pupils to engage
with Shakespeare in such creative ways?
3. If you didn’t have access to the sophisticated ICT
software demonstrated in the programme, what
other methods could be used to engage pupils with
performance?
Engaging Pupils: Connecting with Modern Life
21st Century Authority Figures
Genres
Teachers
Specific People
Tony Blair
Now rank them in order of the power/influence each
has: 1 signifies the most powerful.
Planning for Year 9 Shakespeare: The Tempest
Look at the mocked up KS3 paper for The
Tempest.
What are the potential difficulties of this paper?
(In terms of what it expects of pupils, differentiation
and teaching to answering the paper).
Planning for Year 9 Shakespeare: The Tempest
Assume your pupils are aiming to achieve level 5 or above (refer
back to assessment criteria to check skills)
select one of the questions in the mocked up KS3
paper:
assume that pupils are already familiar with the play
and that you are well into your scheme of work
plan a sequence of 3 - 4 lessons in MTP format
the lessons should culminate in pupils being able to
understand and approach the question effectively
include NC objectives, Assessment Focuses & intended
Learning Outcomes
include drama/speaking and listening based activities
include opportunities for assessment.
20min.
Further Reading
Davison, J. & Dowson, J. Learning to Teach English
in the Secondary School. (Chapter 11)
Gibson, R. Teaching Shakespeare, Cambridge
University Press, 1998.
Wright, T. How to be a Brilliant English Teacher,
Routledge, 2005. (Chapter 1)
Plenary
•
Think back to the suggestions made at
the beginning of the lecture regarding how
you might tackle the difficulties posed by
Shakespeare
• In light of today’s session, write
down/share one key strategy/activity that
you would try out in class.