This blog is dedicated, as promised, to my awesome 2nd hour HS reading class. They just finished a unit on "Hamlet" and let me tell you, they rocked it!
I have heard so much negativity towards teaching Shakespeare and I would just like to say, it's all in how you present it. This is the 3rd time I've taught a Shakespeare play here in Kong and each time my students have walked away with an understanding of the play. Shakespeare can be so much fun to teach if you don't worry so much on the technicalities of the language and instead just help your students understand what they're reading and what Shakespeare was trying to say.
I have to confess, I love using Shakespeare as a way to incorporate sword fighting and acting in the classroom but it works SO WELL! My HS students acted out a couple of scenes from "Hamlet" while we were reading the play. I do this mainly so that they can visualize what's going on and to give them a chance to rewrite Shakespeare into modern English, harder than some would think. There is so much room for interpretation, it's fun to see what they come up with.
My favorite scene that the students acted out was the last scene, Act 5 Scene 2, where basically everyone in the play is killed. I was lucky enough to have some brave boys act out the scene. There are only boy actors in our version, true to Shakespeare's theater. They had name tags that said, "Hi my name is Hamlet" or whatever character they were. Unfortunately, you can't really see them on the video (that one of my students set up :D ) so you'll have to see if you can guess whose playing who.
I know that it's not the most exciting thing in the world, but to me it was HUGE! They all participated, tried their best, and translated what was going on into modern English. They also stepped out of their comfort zones and had fun. That was the best part.
I hope you enjoy our classes little home video. Give me a shout out to what you think.
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