First of all, this was not my idea! But, it’s a brilliant way to engage your kids with Shakespeare, especially high schoolers! All credit goes to Larry Reiff (@Mrreiff) – as he says, “All the world’s an e-stage”! Love it!
Now, onto the great idea… Shakespeare analyzed via memes. I know this is not traditional, but hey, we are about engaging our kids with the wonderful language and stories of Shakespeare any way possible, and this is PERFECT!
So simply, he has the kids analyze a scene and then find photos and memes that go with specific phrases. See examples below. Larry’s class uses: imgflip to generate his memes and photos… Other teachers use Canva to create cards around phrases – with images – both are engaging and fun ideas.
Have fun with these, and be sure to share more ideas so we all can have kids that are better Bard lovers!
Part 2 of the 12 part series: Why Drama is so important in School. – CREATIVITY Sherlock Holmes once questioned what the point was of filling his brain with useless facts, in this particular case, the Earth revolving around the Sun. As he would rather fill his brain with useful facts. Although I don’t completely agree with his philosophy,…
Over the years, I have done many classroom visits. It’s such a wonderful experience for me, the kids, and the teacher. It’s a quick 45-55 minutes visit, that consists of the following:
2-3 minutes about me and Shakespeare, quick and simple
5-9 minute solo TOTALLY interactive one-man show retelling one play (i.e. Macbeth or Hamlet or check out some videos below!)
Typically, I pull kids out of the audience and have them say lines or get killed during the performance!
Then we have them do their “auditions” (mine are COMPLETELY different than typical auditions)
It starts with everyone lining up and doing their best “death” (remember, this is melodramatic Shakespeare and most kids LOVE to die on stage!)
Then, I have every give me their best scream! (they just saw a dead body, it’s only logical!)
Lastly, I have everyone line up and give me their best evil laugh or witches cackle. I first start off with teaching them how to do a basic evil laugh (Muwahahaha!!! Using their entire body in the process)
A few days before, the class reviews and writes down various Shakespeare insults from the insult generator.
Have them practice on each other (or even their parents and siblings!)
Then we meet and start the Insult-a-thon. Kids love it!
At that point, it’s a Q&A about whatever Shakespeare title they are reviewing, Shakespeare, or even book writing and publishing.
You can engage your class this way on a first day of Shakespeare, or , if you are interested in learning more about me coming in for a classroom visit, you can email me at brendan at PlayingWithPlays.com
One other note, the typical grades that I visit are 5th through 7th, they are typically the most engaging when it comes to all the hands-on activities that we do!
Classroom Insult-a-thon (Don’t forget, April 23rd is National Insult Like Shakespeare Day!) It’s simple and fun and works like this: Everyone writes up 3-4 different insults using the Shakespeare Insult Generator They spend about 5-10 minutes practicing their insults, working on generating the appropriate delivery with angst! Split the class into 2 groups that line…
Although Shakespeare used a lot of words we may not understand, and a lot of words people and kids will think are “big”, what’s clear is he was an artist with language. Now, not many of us are ever going to be 1/8th as good with language as he was, but we will at least be…
Well today is the day of the week that most people practice religion of one type or another. For some people it’s the church, others football, and to others, reading is religion. Stepping into a slightly tighter niche than that, Shakespeare. And some of these people who love the Bard, get together on Sunday for a friendly game of #ShakesTag.
What is #ShakesTag, you may ask? Well, it’s a game created by two ladies: Dr. Wells and Lara Schiffbauer. But every week they play to some type of theme, post together a short Shakespeare tweet, related to said theme, then tag it with #ShakesTag. And off goes the game!
It’s surprising, how many people are playing, and it’s fun to get tagged by someone, because it means you’re “in the gang”.
But teachers, this is where I think you can engage your kids in learning some of Shakespeare’s famous lines with your class. Or, more importantly, that is language means more than just words written on a piece of paper. During one of your classroom sessions, start a #ShakesTag game with your kids on Twitter. See how many references to “love” or insults, or humor, or some other term that would surprise and engage your kids.
Let me know how it goes. And if you have any stories of teaching kids with Shakespeare, I would love to hear and share them. Let me know!
This is a book review of STAGEiT! Shakespeare. The author of STAGEiT! Shakespeare is Floyd Rumohr, and he was gracious enough to send me a few copies so I could review them and give some away to my followers. I have 3 copies of STAGEiT! Shakespeare Grades 5-8 to give away, read on to learn…