
Suitable for: Years 7-9
Prerequisites: Poetry for Beginners OR Literary Techniques (one-day crash course)
Duration: 2 hours a week for 10 weeks; 20 hours total
About:
Fairies! Love Potions! A donkey’s head! Shakespeare’s comedy tells a fantastical story while making us think about love, marriage, and transformation. In every lesson, students read an extract from Shakespeare’s play. After reading each extract, students are asked to analyse how the literary techniques in the passage create meaning and explore the themes of the play. The students are then asked to share their analyses with the class and to write analytical paragraphs. Students are given two notes booklets on themes and characters, which they fill out throughout the term, and which they can use as their final study notes for any school exams. At the end of the course, students are equipped to analyse Shakespeare’s other plays.
Student Writing Outcomes:
- Opinion pieces about the extracts and characters studied in class
- Analytical paragraphs or partial essays about the extracts studied
- Notes booklet
Student Learning Objectives:
- Reviewing and consolidating an extensive list of techniques for poetry analysis
- Understanding characters, themes, context of Dream
- Understanding Shakespearean language
- Having the tools to analyse and write about Shakespeare’s plays in opinion pieces and essays
- Considering the similarities and differences between people today and people in Shakespeare’s time
- Evaluating Shakespeare’s responses to questions we still have today
- Organising notes