This unit will focus on the transgressive behavior of characters from some of Shakespeare’s most famous plays and how we can identify with those actions. This unit is designed to help students bridge the gap between Shakespearean literature and modern life. Many times we find ourselves saying the wrong thing to someone, something that might sound offensive; and even if we didn’t mean it, the next necessary step is to consider how we get out of that situation. In modern life, we create transgressive behavior just as did Shakespeare’s characters. The plays we will focus on in this unit are Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing, and Henry IV part 1. Students will be asked to identify the transgressive behavior, to discuss the significance of who owns it, how he or she got into the situation, and how the scene might alternatively play out. Students will be asked to create parallel moments in contemporary contexts and to incorporate the Shakespeare line in their alternative contexts. This unit will suggest the use of vocabulary lists per each play, summaries of each story, character maps, as well as background information on the writer himself.

Readers, young and old, can learn about themselves by vicariously facing the conflicts, disappointments and triumphs lived out by the fascinating characters they encounter in literature. Shakespeare’s plays remain popular because they so evocatively and powerfully portray our human experience, as we live it today. That exposure to this mysterious, dynamic quality of life that allows us bravely to face conflicts and creatively learn from our mistakes is one of the most important lessons that we need to begin to teach our children.

Through the use of select children’s books and simplified versions of the well-known ‘three caskets scenes’ in the play, The Merchant of Venice, students will gain a familiarity with its fairy-tale-like storyline. The focus will be on the challenge that Portia’s suitors face in the context of this moral trial during which the suitors will have the rare opportunity to look beyond mere appearances in making their choices. But will they take a risk and do that? In these scenes we will look at how the choice of each of the suitors reflects his own character and decides his ultimate destiny.

This unit focuses on how characters’ identities are constructed in text. When we read, how do we know that a character is acting or speaking according to his or her true nature? When are those actions or speech the result of a role that has been assumed? Using Shakespeare’s Hamlet as an anchor text, students will explore these questions at length in order to analyze the central character. This unit will allow students the opportunity to differentiate between an individual’s (relatively) permanent identity and the various parts that same individual might play in various situations. As they read the play, students will constantly reevaluate Hamlet based on specific lines and interactions with other characters. Under what circumstances does the prince reveal himself truthfully, and why?

This study is particularly relevant to high school students, who often grapple with issues of identity and to reconcile actions and speech that may seem to contradict one’s true nature. By closely examining the variety of ways in which Hamlet can be read as a character, students will develop an understanding of how to regard personality as a multifaceted quality.

Concurrently, students will conduct an investigation of a character in an independent reading book using the same framework. How does this character display his or her true nature in certain situations, and how does he or she assume temporary roles elsewhere? This independent study, along with the class-wide examination of Hamlet , will provide the foundation for students’ performance tasks for this unit. Students will write a paper in which they explain the difference between role playing and establishment of true identity. Using evidence found in Hamlet and their chosen independent reading book, each student will conduct a deep analysis of how an individual may assume several roles to achieve a desired goal, while also maintaining a separate, stable identity.

This unit studies how manliness or lack of manliness affects Macbeth. Shakespeare presents a very strong Lady Macbeth who is in control of a fearful and hesitant Macbeth. The supernatural power of the weird sisters lures Macbeth to believe he should be king, and he seems to succumb to the power of women that is evoked by their feminine presence. The differences between man and woman loom throughout the text. The sexual and gender differences, the masculine and the feminine, constantly cross the boundaries and prove ambiguous. The unit analyzes and discusses Macbeth’s gender identity, and the authority it may have on Macbeth’s ethics. The students also read excerpts from “The History of Sexuality” by Michele Foucault, excerpts from “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution” by Judith Butler, excerpts from “Sexual Transformation” by Gayle Rubin, and excerpts from “Female Masculinity” by Judith Halberstam. One goal of the unit is to make students understand, reflect about, discuss, and argue how Shakespeare sees gender, its influence on decision-making, and the reactions it might provoke. The other goal is to help students question their own stereotypes about gender and facile generalizations and/or prejudices. The unit adheres to the new Common Core Standards.

When teaching Shakespeare, we add to the modern problem of social media distraction the mission to convince students to not only read text, but to read something 400 hundred years old and in verse! So why not allow both worlds to meet? In this curricular unit, young learners are given the opportunity to explore their own world of modern communication while simultaneously analyzing the Bard, comparing the lines of Hamlet to how they communicate with each other. Students will explore and analyze Hamlet’s many lines, whether they are meant as private meditations or public barbs, and translate that to modern modes of communication. Would Hamlet have used a public Tweet or a private “direct” message for any given sentiment? Who would he want to hear him ponder whether “to be or not to be,” and how would that look on social media? Through exploration of key, succinct lines in the play that would hold up well in today’s world of headlines, texting and Tweeting, students will delve into the character of Hamlet, his relationships with other key characters, and how words themselves – modern or centuries-old – can have a deep impact upon us, even in brief.

We will be studying Macbeth and how the Visual Arts teacher can help enhance a student’s learning experience. The graphic novel form can help students interpret plot, character, and theme through its unique lens. This paper will examine both the purpose and the specifics of having students create their own graphic novel panels using Photoshop and Wacom (electronic drawing) tablets. One area of focus will be inclusion of detail. Deciding what to leave out is just as important as deciding what to leave in. Sometimes the reader’s imagination can conjure up an image that is far more powerful than any image an illustrator can create. Students will also closely consider the importance of visual clues to the reader, asking key questions as they proceed. For example, how will a sense of mood and atmosphere be conveyed? The same scene with different shading and or use of lighting can appear dramatically different. Character expressions are another consideration: How will the scene convey emotions?

Students will complete the unit – Four Scenes from Macbeth – having improved their skills in both literary interpretation and artistic technique.

The quotation in the title of this unit is from the speech where Hamlet concludes that the only way for him to reveal something unspeakable is through the art of theater. This unit proposes that students, too, can discover the ineffable life lessons in Shakespeare by taking on the role of director: the one who sees things from above, who incarnates the setting and the actors, and the one who needs to understand the complex human problems Shakespeare’s characters face. In this unit, students will provide stage directions that Shakespeare never wrote. The words are guidelines for what characters experience, but “the eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report” what exactly it is that motivates characters to love, to hate, to commit suicide or indeed, to forgive each other. But the director will. Students will analyze characters, describe how particular lines should be delivered, and justify how staging, props and costumes might portray what words scripted by themselves do not. By doing so, students will understand the human motive and heartbeat beneath the iambic pentameter rhythms of Shakespeare.