Introducing Shakespeare

[Linda (Australia)]

How does one go about introducing Shakespeare? Do you just whack them with the written play or DVD of the play and discuss it? What resources have you used that have been of help?

 

And what plays are the best to begin with?

 

Thankyou,

[charlotteb]

I recently bought "Tales From Shakespeare" by Charles and Mary Lamb on the recommendation from someone on this board. It highly recommend it myself now! It gives a great summary of the plays in simple, modern language. Maybe you could read a play summary from them and then read the play in its original form.

Also, I have thought about buying this product from "Hands of a Child": http://www.handsofachild.com/shop/William-Shakespeare-P1268.aspx

Edited May 21, 2009 by charlotteb

[Michelle in AL]

Shakespeare's works were meant for acting and the stage of course, some of the meaning is lost in just reading it. For that reason many recommend watching it first. Either in play form or movie. You could read the child's version or short synopsis before the play or movie.

 

When you're ready to read, reading it aloud helps. If you have multiple family members reading it then take turns with lines.

 

I prefer to read the side by side translations, Shakespeare on one page and modern English on the other, only looking at the modern if I have must.

 

Shakespeare invented a great many words. A Shakespearean dictionary is pretty fun.

[Maria/ME]

I think it depends on the ages of your children and what subjects are their strengths. For example, I introduced Shakespeare by way of history, as my daughter LOVED history. And now she likes drama/theatre, thanks to Shakespeare!

 

I would start by having them get to know the bard himself. Then a synopsis of a particular play (I would start with a comedy that isn't too complicated, like Much Ado About Nothing) Let them get a feel for the language with something easy and fun to follow. I find if the play is too complicated or the plot too heavy we get bogged down. Once they start enjoying Shakespeare (or not) they may want to delve into his heavier and more meaty works and find that they enjoy these. We started in this way and my daughter has decided on her own to memorize speeches of Shakespeare. So we've got poetry,memorization, dictation, drama and public speaking down! ;)

 

Meanwhile. Books. There is this book. And this series. There is Lamb as was mentioned, there are Tales from Shakespeare by Packer (my daughter loves this book) or a DK Shakespeare book is always nice. You could also try Nesbit's Children's Shakespeare. And Oh! I just found this Intro to Shakespeare that looks delightful! Study guides abound too. One that I have not used (yet!) but looks great is Logos Press Intro to Shakespeare.

 

Online resources I have found helpful are: Folger Library, and Shakespeare on the Internet

 

As for which plays to introduce first and which movies are the best I shall let my daughter dictate to me.

 

"Hi. I am 11 years old, and here are some of my suggestions for learning Shakespeare.

 

If you want my opinion, Hamlet, A Midsummer's Nights Dream or Taming of the Shrew would be a great start for plays to read. I would NOT suggest King Lear right away.

 

As for movies, I enjoyed Romeo and Juliet, Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado About Nothing, A Mid-Summer's Nights Dream, MacBeth, Hamlet (with Mel Gibson).There are also some modern-day versions of Shakespeare which are more clear to understand.

 

Tell your kids way to go, and that once you get the plot of each story it's a blast!"

 

P.S. I concur with Michelle per seeing the movies/plays first. If you can get your kids to a local performance of Shakespeare I think it will go a long way to piquing interest and understanding. Also delving into the language of Shakespeare as Michelle also mentioned is an excellent idea! My daughter was astounded to find that he had coined many of the phrases we use today!

Edited May 21, 2009 by Maria/ME

[Jean in Wisc]

The last time we did a unit of Shakespeare, I used a children's version of several of the plays, which my kids read. Then we watched several of the DVDs. After that we followed up with reading out loud a few of the real plays.

 

Then I found No Fear Shakespeare. It is a modern day translation rather than a children's re-write of the play. Love it! This time we will read several of the plays using No Fear. Then we will do the DVDs and follow up with reading a few of them out loud.

 

Then, of course, they write a paper to finish up the unit. :D

 

Jean

 

Oh--I should add that we used Brightest Heaven of Invention, too.

Edited May 21, 2009 by Jean in Wisc

[Kareni]

... I would start by having them get to know the bard himself.

 

A pleasurable read along these lines is Shakespeare: The World as Stage by Bill Bryson.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[luv2quilt]

A group of my ds's homeschool friends got together and read Julius Caesar and Hamlet together. It makes it much more interesting than just reading it solo. They were able to really get into the reading that way. One of the mom's had majored in English in college and would stop them along the way to interject some explanation or info.

[Ibbygirl]

My daughter's language arts curriculum for next year (7th grade) is introducing Shakespeare. They chose Much Ado About Nothing as the text. :)

[Jean in Wisc]

Here is a sample of No Fear Hamlet.

[Peela]

We have read some Lambs and some Nebitt stories and I think these are great as a way of getting familiar with Shakespeare, even for teens who havent been exposed to the real thing yet.

Last year dd did Hamlet with a homeschool drama class- so I decided to do it at home as well, with both kids. I got the BBC audio production of it at the library (they have a lot of Shakespeare plays on audio) and we just listened to 15 minutes or so a week until it finished. My kids are far more audio savvy than I am- I just dont do well with audio, but they are great and could give me good narrations after each session. I had to read along to understand it :)

I intended to do Henry V this year but when we tried to watch the movie- well, we just couldnt get into it at all. So I gave that up because they enjoy Shakespeare and dont think of it as boring, so I didnt want to turn them off. Instead I remembered I had enjoyed The Taming of the Shrew in highschool, and I got the movie out of that- with a young Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Gorgeous costumes. Fun movie- rather bawdy though, but that is the point. We read the Nesbitt version first, then started to watch the movie. We had to stop to go out- the kids kept begging me to watch the rest for the next few days and eventually watched it themselves when I was out one evening. They loved it.

I have realised that I find reading Shakespeare the least appealing way of enjoying it, even with modern translation. We have gone to see Romeo and Juliet at the local uni, and also watched the Leonardo de Caprio version on TV.

So far we havent done any analysing at all. I am not sure I even want to...if my kids can get through their childhood actually enjoying and being familiar with many of Shakespeare's plays- I think it would be better than going deeply into a couple and being turned off by the analysis (as I was as a teen).

[PeterPan]

VP sells (or used to sell) some Shakespeare comic books that were really good.

[Corraleno]

I'm reposting this from the other recent Shakespeare thread:

 

Classical Comics is a British company that does high quality graphic novels of Shakespeare in three versions: the original unabridged text, a "plain English" version of roughly the same length, and a very pared-down "quick text" version. (They also do other classic lit like Dickens, Austen, etc.)

 

All three versions have identical pages/illustrations, only the speech bubbles & text differ, so for parents with children of multiple ages, it could be a fun way to include the younger children (e.g. parent/teen reads the original text aloud while middle-schooler follows along in the plain text version and an elementary child reads the "quick text" version). Also a great way to introduce Shakespeare to a reluctant reader.

 

You can see a list of available titles (and those in production) on the UK website, as well as a sample of the three different versions. There are also some free downloads of various excerpts from the plays that are used in British schools for standardized tests:

http://www.classicalcomics.com/index.html

 

You can buy them from Amazon in the US (you can also "Look Inside"):

http://www.amazon.com/Macbeth-Graphi...653388&sr=11-1

 

Jackie

 

NOTE to the OP: If you go here and click on Australia, they will tell you the Australian distributor:

http://www.classicalcomics.com/ordering.html