Shakespeare versions for 8th grader?

[LAmom]

Looking to have my 8th grader read a bit of Shakespeare next year.   What versions of the books do you recommend?  I've looked at different curriculum companies and they are all over the place.  My 8th grader is a great reader.  If you want to recommend what you think are the must read ones, too, that would be great.  I was planning on possibly Julius Caesar, King Lear, Macbeth, Twelfth Night???  King Lear perhaps.  I obviously have very little experience with Shakespeare except for the Leonardo DiCaprio movie: Romeo and Juliet.   :leaving:

 

 

[Arcadia]

My oldest is attending Roy's upcoming class on Romeo and Juliet and I like the Romeo & Juliet: Oxford School Shakespeare book that he use.

 

Class link

http://hscollegebound.com/Romeo-and-Juliet.htm

 

For my youngest who is not as strong a reader, I'm assigning the No Fear Shakespeare book series as a fun read. He'll do the comedies first. http://nfs.sparknotes.com

[happypamama]

I would save Macbeth, only because it's really, really common in high school materials, or at least, it was in several classes I took in high school.  I know I read it multiple times.

 

We have Henry V planned for this year, 9th, because it fits with our history.  DD did well with Twelfth Night in 7th.  We read it with one of the translations that has the modern below the Shakespeare; that was okay, but DD felt that it interrupted the flow a bit.  So we have the No Fear Shakespeare version for Henry V, which has the modern on one side of the page and the Shakespeare on the other.

[Lori D.]

For initial exposure to the story lines, you might look into viewing the Shakespeare: The Animated Tales (12 plays, each about 25 min. long, using the actual lines from the plays, but in a condensed story format) -- Vimeo has them for online viewing. It can be very nice to first get a handle on the characters and the story, and THEN tackle the actual language. :)

 

Or possibly start with a prose adaptation: Tales From Shakespeare (Lamb) and Children's Shakespeare (Nesbit) are very similar in their older Victorian writing style. For more modern retellings: Shakespeare Stories (Garfield) or Stories From Shakespeare (McCaughrean). For a comicstrip version which retells the plays, Marcia Williams has a Tales From Shakespeare and More Tales From Shakespeare, each with 6-8 plays.

 

As an extension to get a feel for the times and theater of the early 1600s, do check out the historical fiction Shakespeare Stealer series by Blackwood. Also, the Shakespeare for Kids website has lots of nice background info to help make the plays come alive and make more sense to modern tweens/teens. The PBS website Shakespeare Uncovered also had lots of great info and videos, but is more geared for older teens/adults. A good beginning book for background might be How To Teach Your Children Shakespeare (Ludwig).

 

And as a preview before reading an actual play to help get into the feel and sound of the language (and if your student is very familiar with Star Wars: New Hope -- the original Star Wars movie, but IV of the series), I *highly* recommend first reading William Shakespeare's Star Wars (Doescher). VERY fun, and it really does help you quickly get the feel for Shakespeare's grammar, sentence structure, iambic pentameter meter, and older vocabulary/language. :)

 

I'd also consider watching a good version of the play and THEN having your 8th grader read that play. At about that 8th grade age, our DSs watched the 1993 Kenneth Branagh film version of Much Ado About Nothing and had no trouble following what was happening, and really laughed over the humor. When they were in late elementary grades, they had also really enjoyed the 1961 film of West Side Story (musical adaptation of Romeo and Juliet). And in high school, after we read Macbeth, they really enjoyed watching the 1957 film Throne of Blood, a Japanese samurai adaptation of Macbeth -- it is the story, but not the lines, of Shakespeare's play.

 

OR, you might start by just reading some famous and accessible excerpts from a play, then watching a version, and then reading the full play. We did find it helpful, and especially enjoyable, to do some of our Shakespeare readings aloud together as "reader's theater" -- each of us taking on several parts for the scene or act we were reading, and "letting our inner thespian out" as we read aloud together.  ;)

 

For actual text, the Parallel Shakespeare texts are nice (original text on one page and modern translation on facing page) -- the company also puts out some very good  gr. 7-12 student workbooks and teacher guides for actually digging into the works. Sparknotes' No Fear Shakespeare (free website, or, purchased print books) are similar, with side-by-side original text and modern translation. We used these last year in my high school level Lit. & Comp. class -- when we read aloud a scene, I let students choose whether to read their lines from the original text or modern translation; the younger students went for the modern translation, while the 11th-12th graders really enjoyed reading from the original text. Having both to choose from gave the students confidence to tackling Shakespeare. 

 

As far as which plays to go for with an 8th grader… I personally think these are the most accessible story-wise and thematically:

- comedies: Midsummer Night's Dream; Much Ado About Nothing; Taming of the Shrew; Twelfth Night

- tragedies: Romeo and Juliet; Macbeth; Othello

- histories: Julius Caesar (also listed as a tragedy); Henry V

 

It seems like a lot of high school Lit. programs cover Hamlet, Julius Caesar, and either The Tempest or Midsummer Night's Dream. -- I do think Hamlet and the The Tempest are do-able for 8th grade, but also have a lot of subtlety, so if you read them now, you'll want to hit them up again in high school. Of the other more commonly-performed or commonly-studied plays, I personally think Merchant of Venice and King Lear are very complex (college is a good time for those two), so I'd hold off on those. I'd also hold off on As You Like It, The Winter's Tale, and the histories, which just aren't going to be as interesting or accessible to an 8th grader. Again, totally JMO. :)

 

I'm throwing all of that extra info and links at you because when you're first doing Shakespeare with a tween or young teen, it's nice to have a lot of options in your back pocket to pull out to figure out what helps to make "the Bard" accessible, and ENJOYABLE, to your individual student. :) Have fun! Warmest regards, Lori D.

Edited August 13, 2016 by Lori D.

[LAmom]

Thank you so much!  You all gave helpful advice.  

[Dmmetler]

Shakespeare in Bits is available from HSBC and is a nice add-on, too. You can do a single play or a bundle.

[Holly]

We are probably going with Simply Charlotte Mason's Shakespeare in 3 Easy Steps program.  You reading a Lamb/Nesbit version, then either read aloud or listen & follow along to a CD recording, then you watch a live play or video performance.  Whether or not we go with the actual SCM guide, I think it's a great concept!