LESSON #12-#15: Performance Days
OBJECTIVE: Students will be able to demonstrate their understanding of Shakespeare’s stories and themes by re-telling one of his plays in a dramatic stylized adaptation for the rest of the class.
TEXTS, TECHNOLOGIES, and MATERIALS:
- Additional three panel Shakespeare comic strips, one per day, to display at the beginning of class.
- Found at com (use ones that correlate with the plays your class is re-telling)
- a feedback page for each student Lesson 12-15.Student Notes Feedback Sheets
- a teacher rubric for each group Lesson 12-15.Final Rubric
- a stopwatch or something else to keep time
DAY PLAN:
“Take Action” #1: On a scale of 1-10, how ready do you feel to perform?
“Take Action” #2: How do you feel like this process has helped you to better understand
Shakespeare’s works?
“Take Action” #3: Which performance have you enjoyed the most thus far? Why?
Lesson Plan:
Each day of performance will follow the same basic outline:
- Give each student a Student Notes feedback page and have them put their name on it first.
- Identify the order that the groups are going to perform in: for our class we chose to perform them in the order that Shakespeare wrote each of the plays that were being re-told.
- On the first day of performances (if students seem to need it) give them about 5-10 minutes to re-group and make sure they are all set to perform.
- After each group performs, take time for the following:
- Give students in the audience a chance to give verbal feedback.
- Make sure students don’t jump into negative feedback. Help them focus on the actual questions they are writing down the answer to: What did they enjoy and what could be changed (not to improve the actual performance) so the concept fit the story better?
- Give a couple of similar notes from your own rubric.
Closure: (End of last day) Congratulate students on a job well done. Give them a few minutes to fill out the last two questions on their feedback form. Take the opportunity at the end of class to wrap up the unit and discuss any of the following with students:
- What was something new you discovered about Shakespeare? (they should have already written an answer down!)
- How do you feel your understanding of Shakespeare has grown?
- Was it easy to put Shakespeare’s stories in a different context, why or why not?
- Do you think Shakespeare is applicable today?