It’s time once again to check in on what searches people have done to find themselves at Shakespeare Teacher, and to respond in the name of fun and public service. All of the following searches brought people to this site in the past week.

In the episode “Bringing Up Buster,” George-Michael, Maeby, and Steve Holt get involved with a Shakespeare play, which Tobias ends up directing. The cast list is posted below a sign that says Much Ado About Nothing, and the character names are Beatrice and Benedick, so that would seem to be that. But the lines in the play are from As You Like It. And is that kid on stage behind Maeby dressed like a donkey?

Rex means king in Latin. The letter X following the name of a king, as in King Louis X, is the Roman numeral for 10. So, for example, King Louis X of France is the tenth King of France named Louis. It should be pronounced “the Tenth.”

In the case of Malcolm X, it would be a major faux pas to say “Malcolm the Tenth.” Malcolm Little chose to replace his last name with the letter X to represent the lost names of African families taken to America in slavery.

Great question! I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader. The four letters are “RSTU” and they appear consecutively in a word that relates to live theatre. Does anyone know what it is?

UPDATE: The answer can be found in the comments for this post.

Shakespeare was born in the latter half of the 16th century, a century largely shaped by the Protestant Reformation, which affected each country differently. Scotland broke with the Pope in 1560. (For reference, Shakespeare was born in 1564, and King James in 1566.) The movement was led by John Knox, who studied with John Calvin in Geneva, and then returned to Scotland. The Scottish Reformation led to the foundation of the Presbyterian Church.

James was raised in the Church of Scotland, but came to feel that Presbyterianism was incompatible with monarchy. His reforms took hold during, and beyond the life of Shakespeare. For more information about the Church of Scotland, see this list of resources.

Yes, at least the later Tudors. Shakespeare lived in Tudor England for the first part of his life, and would have spoken roughly the same version of English as the royal family, setting aside allowances for class. But Shakespeare did not always write the way he spoke. Much of the language in his plays and poems is heightened, not trying to capture the way that people would have sounded, but rather to use language to express internal thoughts and emotions. It’s something he was very good at doing, needless to say.

It’s worth noting that the King James Bible was also published in Shakespeare’s lifetime (1611), which is why the language is so similar: “Thou shalt not…” and so on. The Bible was also translated into heightened language, though, and should not be considered an authentic representation of how people would have spoken at the time.

I like to do Forum Theatre. Have students devise a scene illustrating a problem that is prevalent among them. There should be a clear protagonist who wants something but is prevented from getting it because of the problem. They perform the scene. Then they perform it again, but any member of the audience may interrupt the scene by yelling out “Stop!” at any time. At this point, the intervening audience member (spect-actor) replaces the protagonist and tries a new strategy. The other actors improvise around the new protagonist. This is a great way to workshop constructive solutions to pressing problems, to begin a process of rehearsing to make change, and to learn a lot about your students!

I leave the task of responding to the remaining search terms to my readers:

who did shakespeare admire

how shakespeare affected the english language

why francis bacon couldn’t have written shakespeare

king james badmouthed shakespeare

shakespeare games for five year olds ideas

how to make king lear fun

It’s time once again to check in on what searches people have done to find themselves at Shakespeare Teacher, and to respond in the name of fun and public service. All of the following searches brought people to this site in the past week.

Probably not. Antony and Cleopatra did have three children, two boys and a girl. Cleopatra also had a child, Caesarion, from Julius Caesar. (“He plough’d her, and she cropp’d.” See how classy you sound when you quote Shakespeare?) Antony also had children from four of his wives.

After Octavius Caesar conquered Egypt (the events depicted in Shakespeare’s Antony & Cleopatra) he executed Caesarion, and gave the three children of Antony and Cleopatra to his sister Octavia. Remember (from the play) that Octavia was Antony’s last wife, so she’s now raising the children of her husband and his mistress. Little is known of the two boys, and if they had lived to adulthood, they would probably have been mentioned in sources of the time because of their parentage. It is possible they may have secretly been killed to avoid a later challenge to Octavius. But it’s also possible that they lived on and had children of their own. There’s no way to know.

The daughter of Antony and Cleopatra, named Cleopatra Selene, was married to an African king, and they had – at least – great grandchildren. Zenobia, a third century Syrian queen, claimed to be descended from this line. So it’s certainly possible that the descendants of Antony and Cleopatra are among us today. And if so, the opportunities to multiply between the 1st century and the 15th century would be massive. Therefore, we cannot rule out definitively that the Tudors are descended from Antony and Cleopatra. But could they know this for sure, let alone trace it? No. Those 1400 years weren’t exactly known for their record keeping, and there is too much motivation for people to invent a famous lineage along the way.

Margaret Tudor was Henry VIII’s older sister. She married James IV of Scotland in 1503, and a hundred years later, her great-grandson would become King of England (after Henry VIII’s line died out).

However, if you are asking about the character played by Gabrielle Anwar in The Tudors, you’re really looking for younger sister Mary Tudor. Another Mary would have probably been too confusing, so they conflated the two women into one character. Mary Tudor was the one who married an aging king only to be widowed three months later. Mary was the one who married Charles Brandon. I’ve only seen the first season of the show, so I don’t know what the character would later become, but in the first season, Margaret’s story is that of Mary Tudor.

Shakespeare had a lot of plots that centered around practical jokes. Often, they would blur the line between harmless prank and vicious revenge, but you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, am I right? Without any further ado, then, is my Top Ten list of Shakespearean pranks. Drum roll, please!

10. The Merry Wives of Windsor – I’m not a fan of this play, and I’m loathe to include it on the list of Top Ten anything. But a list of Shakespearean pranks would be incomplete without it, so here it is at #10. Suffice it to say, there are a number of pranks in this play. I’d list them, but I can’t be bothered.

9. Henry IV, Part Two – Hal and Poins disguise themselves as drawers and listen in on Falstaff’s bragging. They reveal themselves, but not before Falstaff has a chance to badmouth the Prince behind his back. The fun comes when Falstaff tries to talk his way out of it.

8. Measure for Measure – The “bed trick” and the “head trick” are serious deceptions and can hardly be considered a prank. But what about what I like to call the “fled trick”? The Duke pretends to leave Vienna, but instead stays back disguised as a friar. I guess the joke’s on Angelo. Busted!

7. Twelfth Night – Malvolio, imprisoned in darkness, recieves a visit from Sir Topas the curate. Actually, it’s Feste the jester disguising his voice. Playing both parts, Feste drives the supposed madman one step closer to real madness.

6. Much Ado about Nothing – Beatrice and Benedick’s merry war takes a surprising turn when their friends allow them to overhear conversations to make each believe the other is in love. The prank becomes self-fulfilling. “Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.”

5. Henry IV, Part One – Hal and Poins pretend to go along with Falstaff’s plan to rob some travellers. But they enter in disguise after the fact and rob the robbers! They reveal their prank after Falstaff has been boasting about his encounter with the unknown thieves.

4. The Tempest – Prospero uses his magic to get revenge on those who have wronged him. But the havoc only lasts the afternoon and there’s no real damage done. The whole play is one big prank.

3. A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Puck changes Bottom into an ass. And Titania, having been spiked with a love potion by Oberon, falls in love with the creature. Hilarity ensues.

2. Twelfth Night – Maria forges a letter from Olivia to Malvolio, hinting that she is in love with him. Toby, Andrew, and Fabian spy on Malvolio as he reads the letter, which tells him to come to her in an outlandish manner… and he does.

1. Othello – Iago tricks Othello into believing that his wife has been unfaithful, so he kills her. Not really a prank, you say? Check out this video.

There are a lot of good monologues for men from King Lear. To start with, you can find monologues from Lear here, from Edmund here, and Edgar here. The female characters in the play have some great speeches, but nothing I would particularly pull out as a monologue.

You may be looking for Shakespeare: The Animated Tales, a series of half-hour condensed animated versions of Shakespeare plays. But I’ve also done a lot of work with students creating animated versions of Macbeth, As You Like It, and The Tempest. And since this is Shakespeare Teacher, I’ll offer some information about how to do it.

When I did these animation projects, the students did the artwork in HyperStudio, they recorded the sound in SoundEffects, and they aligned the two in iMovie. It was frame-by-frame, which is time consuming, but HyperStudio had a card-and-stack interface that made it go much more quickly. That was quite a few years ago, though, and I do mostly video projects now. I don’t know if HyperStudio is even still around, and people use Audacity for sound recordings today. iMovie is still the best game in town if you want to coordinate frame animation.

I know a lot of people who like to use the website Scratch for student animations. The one problem with Scratch is that you can only view the animations from the Scratch website. You cannot download the movie file and post it to YouTube.

I’ve heard, particularly from Shakespeare teachers, a lot of enthusiasm surrounding Kar2ouche. I looked at it once, a long time ago, and I dismissed it because there are a lot of pre-made templates, and I wanted my students to visually interpret the characters themselves. But time being a factor, I would probably recommend it, and I’ve seen some Shakespeare projects that look really sharp. Every so often, someone asks me if I’ve heard of Kar2ouche.

Of course, if your kids are into Second Life, there has been some animated Shakespeare coming from that quarter as well. There is also stop motion photography, which can be done with a digital camera, iMovie, and a lot of patience.

I can interpret this in four ways:

1. Was Queen Elizabeth the illegitimate child of Shakespeare?
2. Was Queen Elizabeth’s illegitimate child Shakespeare?
3. Did Queen Elizabeth’s illegitimate child actually write the plays of Shakespeare?
4. Was Queen Elizabeth an illegitimate child according to Shakespeare?

Elizabeth was older than Shakespeare, so #1 is a clear No. I don’t know of any illegitimate children of Elizabeth. This seems to me to be something easier for a king to pull off than a queen. If she had gone through a pregnancy, I doubt she’d have kept the nickname “the Virgin Queen” for very long. So we can answer a No for #2 and #3 as well.

As for whether Elizabeth herself was illegitimate, that’s a fair question. It all depends on how legitimate you consider the annulment of Henry VIII and his first wife. But Shakespeare certainly wouldn’t have painted her as illegitimate. When she was alive, he wrote plays that glorified her ancestors, and long after she died, his play Henry VIII treated her birth as a moment of great hope for the future of England.

So I’m not sure what you’re asking, but the answer is probably No.

I leave the task of responding to the remaining search terms to my readers:

It’s time once again to check in on what searches people have done to find themselves at Shakespeare Teacher, and to respond in the name of fun and public service. All of the following searches brought people to this site in the past week.

That’s a good question. For the past five years, I’ve been using “Mosh” by Eminem. It was great for teaching repetition, rhyme, rhythm, alliteration, antithesis, allusion, and emendation (where I edited out the profanity). Useful as it is, though, it’s starting to get a little old, so I’d appreciate any good suggestions. Are there any popular hip hop songs today that use a lot of poetic devices that might be good for teaching Shakespeare?

Well, the Tudors were English, but it’s important to remember that they reigned from 1485 to 1603, a time of extraordinary changes in publishing, literacy, and what would be considered “the English language.” This was the time of the Great Vowel Shift, as Middle English transitioned into Early Modern English, and the Middle Ages gave way to the Renaissance.

Probably the most famous work written by a Tudor monarch would be the Defense of the Seven Sacraments, which Henry VIII wrote in Latin, a very common written language at the time. However, his personal letters are in English.

Bloody Mary refers to Queen Mary I, another Tudor monarch who reigned from 1553-1558. She was daughter to Henry VIII (by Catherine of Aragon) and older sister to Elizabeth I. She died before Shakespeare was born, and does not appear in any of his plays, not even the one that bears her father’s name.

The phrase “ghost the fine worth” is an anagram of “Twelfth Night, or Shoe” if you add an extra “L” into the mix. But “Shoe” is not the subtitle of that play, and the extra “L” is cheating, so that’s probably not it. If you do allow substitutions, you can swap “S” for “KNURY” and make “King Henry the Fourth, Two.” The closest I can come is to remove an “O” from the original phrase and replace it with “AEM.” What play title could you anagram then?

UPDATE: Play title discovered by Dharam. See comments for answer.

It’s hard to really put a play at a particular grade level. I prefer to teach the play I want to teach, and plan instruction to fit the students I’m teaching. I’ve only taught As You Like It twice, once to 7th graders and once to graduate students. The lighthearted tone of the play and the fun situations that it depicts make this a fun choice for even the youngest students studying Shakespeare. So if you’re wondering if As You Like It would be a good play for your students, it probably is!

The historical Macbeth died in 1057, so the event you’re looking for is most likely the Battle of Hastings in 1066. This completed the Norman invasion, and basically defined what we think of England even today. William the Conqueror became King William I of England, and every English monarch since – whether King John or Richard III or Henry VIII or George III or Victoria or Elizabeth II – has been a direct descendant of his. That is one impressive legacy.

I leave the task of responding to the remaining search terms to my readers:

I subscribe to a service called “SiteMeter” which allows me to see a limited amount of information about my visitors. One thing that I can see is if someone finds my site via a Google search, and what they were searching for.

Every now and then I check in on what searches people have done to find themselves at Shakespeare Teacher, and to respond to those search terms in the name of fun and public service. All of the following searches brought readers to this site in the past week.

Enjoy!

Queen Katherine in Shakespeare’s Henry VIII is Catherine of Aragon. You can find good monologue material here and here.

You really have to consider Paulo Friere as Augusto Boal’s number one influence. Boal’s works also contain significant references to Marx, Hegel, Aristotle, Brecht, and Shakespeare. He was, of course, also greatly influenced by all of the many people with whom he interacted during his lifetime.

I love the idea of having students write obituaries for Shakespeare’s characters. They could also write classified ads, advice column requests, and news stories. I’ve recently read blog posts where characters from Shakespeare have written Letters to Santa and New Year’s Resolutions, and these seem like good writing assignments for students as well.

Because he kills everyone who might possibly get in his way. But is he ultimately successful? See below.

Nothing. He’s dead.

Even if he weren’t, life would be bleak. His wife would be gone, and he’d be out of power. And as a former tyrant, he’d be made a laughing stock among the people. His decision to attack Macduff after all of the prophecies have come true may seem reckless to us, but he may not feel that he has a choice.

People looking for hidden “I wrote this” messages in Shakespeare are generally looking to prove that the plays were written by someone else. Shakespeare would have had little reason to hide such a message. But take a look at this page from a late Hamlet quarto, and see if you can find Shakespeare’s authorship message (hint: look at the writing below “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark”).

None of the three seasons of Slings & Arrows centered around The Tempest, but the very first scene of the series does. Geoffrey is directing this very play before the events that will bring him back to the New Burbage. I often tell people who may be interested in the show to watch this scene and the opening credits, and if they’re not hooked by then, there is no need to go on.

With this age group, I recommend doing activities to introduce the plot, characters, and themes of the play before they read the actual text. Start here, and if you like what you read, check out my doctoral dissertation, which was on this exact topic. You should also check out the Cambridge School Shakespeare Macbeth, which has a lot of great activities that can be adapted to this age group, and the Shakespeare Set Free book that includes Macbeth for even more great ideas.

Probably the most significant war Shakespeare lived through was the undeclared Anglo-Spanish War. In the late 16th century, Spanish King Phillip II was gathering an international coalition of Catholic forces to launch an invasion of England and overthrow Queen Elizabeth I. The Spanish Armada was famously defeated by the English navy in 1588. This victory launched a new wave of patriotic fervor among the English, and a popular trend of writing plays about English kings just as Shakespeare was beginning his career as a playwright.

No. Tudor was the surname of the English royal family from 1485 to 1603. The man we refer to as King Henry VIII was born Henry Tudor, Queen Elizabeth I was Elizabeth Tudor, etc. Margaret Tudor, sister of Henry VIII, married James Stuart (King James IV of Scotland) and their offspring continued the Stuart line in Scotland. Eventually, the Stuarts (in the person of James VI of Scotland) ascended to the English throne as well. When we speak of the Tudors and the Stuarts, then, we are not referring to titles, but to actual family names.

So, Shakespeare wasn’t a Tudor; he was a Shakespeare. But he was born and raised under Tudor rule. He lived the rest of his life under Stuart rule.

I was taken aback by this one.

In this post, I discussed how ancient Greek playwrights would often show characters torn between their solemn duties to their oikos (family) and their polis (state), and how this is also a recurring theme in the television series 24. I also discussed how both 24 and ancient Greek tragedy share a unity of place, and used Antony and Cleopatra as a counter-example to demonstrate that Shakespeare did not have to conform to this unity.

What, then, was this search looking for? I don’t really think that oikos vs. polis is a theme in Antony and Cleopatra. It seems to me that the interests of family and state are aligned, and what the title characters are really balancing are those interests vs. their own passions.

The technical term for a king with no Y chromosomes is a “queen.” Notable queens of England have included a couple of Elizabeths, a couple of Marys, an Anne, and a Victoria (plus others, depending on what you want to count).

Almost by definition, a man has an X chromosome and a Y chromosome, and a woman has two X chromosomes. I say almost, because it is possible for there to be variations, but I am not familiar with any kings of England with such a condition.

I leave the task of responding to the remaining search terms to my readers:

I’m currently working on a project with eighth-graders who are learning about civil rights. The other day, we were talking about Rosa Parks. I told them that she wasn’t just some random bus passenger who was too tired to move, but rather (and more impressively) an experienced protester who allowed herself to get arrested on purpose. This surprised the students, who then wanted to know – if that was true – why all of their other teachers had told them otherwise. I said that their other teachers probably heard the story that way, as this is a well-circulated account of what happened.

As an example, I mentioned that it was a popular myth that Columbus proved the earth was round. This time, it was one of the other adults in the room who challenged me on this. I told the students that they didn’t have to believe anything was true, just because I said it was. They could put it on their Google List.

When I visit this class, the teachers asks me if the students should take notes. I encourage the students to keep a Google List. If we broach a topic we don’t have time to cover fully, you put it on the Google List. If there are questions I didn’t have time to answer, or didn’t know the answer, you put it on the Google List. If something I say doesn’t ring true, or contradicts what you already believe, you put it on the Google List. In the Information Age, there’s no reason that learning needs to be completely guided by the teacher, or that it needs to stop when the bell rings.

When I was in graduate school, I kept a “Library List” with me during my classes, so when a professor brought up a reference I didn’t know, I could go to the library and look it up. For me, that’s who these questions were addressed Before Google. What a difference the Internet has made! Today, I’m all over Google (and Wikipedia, actually), expanding my knowledge and filling in gaps on a daily basis. These are real 21st century skills. We should be encouraging our students to develop them.

The 8th grade class I’ve been working with on Othello has finished their video project, and it is now available for public viewing. Enjoy!

The students watched last year’s Cymbeline video before we began the project, so they could think about what they’d like to do as they read Othello. I’m really happy with the way it turned out. Feel free to share this video with anyone you think would be interested.

We come to school expecting answers, but what we really learn is how to ask good questions.

Any work of drama must ask a question. We see it on television all the time. Who killed Laura Palmer? Will Jack Bauer stop the terrorists? What do the “numbers” mean? We also see a number of television shows and movies where the main characters have jobs that require them to ask good questions. Journalists and police detectives are quite common. We see doctors and lawyers in this role too.

When creating dramatic activities for the classroom, it’s often useful to think of the power of the dramatic question. Putting students in roles (like detectives) that ask questions can help stimulate their inquiry process.

Last night was the last class in my Dramatic Activities in the English Classroom course, and I invited my graduate students to write any remaining questions they may have about the course material on an index card, and I would try to address them. One student wrote “Why don’t you post your Macbeth lesson to your website?” – a reference to a lesson on Macbeth that I had demonstrated earlier in the course. So now I share it with you.

This is an actual lesson I have taught many times to introduce Macbeth to a class that is new to it. I originally created it for a fifth-grade class that would be studying the play, but I have taught the lesson in many grades, and in this course many times. The lesson is meant to be taught before the students begin reading the play, so they are not expected to have any prior knowledge.

The students are put in role as police detectives. The teacher is in role as the chief of police. The chief informs the detectives that they will be traveling back in time to the 11th century, and gives them an overview of the crime – Duncan, the King of Scotland, has been murdered. There were nine people in the castle at the time the body was discovered. They must choose which suspects to interview and form a theory of the crime. The chief reviews each of the nine suspects:

MACBETH – The Thane of Glamis and Cawdor. It was his castle at Inverness where the murder took place.
LADY MACBETH – Macbeth’s wife.
MALCOLM – The King’s older son, and the Prince of Cumberland. It is assumed he will become king.
DONALBAIN – The King’s younger son.
BANQUO – Kinsman to Macbeth and Duncan.
FLEANCE – Young son to Banquo.
MACDUFF – The Thane of Fife. He discovered the body.
LENNOX – The Thane of Lennox.
PORTER – Keeper of the gate. Nobody can enter the castle unless the gate is opened from the inside.

The chief asks the detectives who they would like to interview. The detectives vote, and whoever is chosen is played by the teacher, who sits in a chair to indicate the change in role. The detectives interview the suspect and take detailed notes until they are satisfied. They may then choose to interview another suspect, who will also be played by the teacher. At the end of class, students have to write a police report, stating who they believe committed the murder, and why they think so.

Though the interviews, intriguing details emerge. The porter was not at his post all night! There were two other people in the castle, and they were killed by Macbeth after the body was discovered! Malcolm and Donalbain have fled, and are not available for questioning! Other details provoke further questions. Why won’t Macbeth give a straight answer about what he discussed with Banquo on the battlements last night? Were Macbeth and Lady Macbeth both woken by Macduff’s knocking this morning? How did Malcolm respond to hearing his father was murdered?

Obviously, the teacher needs to be very familiar with the play to pull this off. But if done well, it gives the students the opportunity to dig around a little bit in the world of the play before approaching the text. The teacher should not overact the role; the activity should be driven by the questioning of the students. Also, I try to avoid giving any information that’s not in the play, if possible.

It really doesn’t matter who the students ask to talk to. I don’t have any particular information that it’s necessary for students to gain from this activity. The focus is not on giving students any particular answers; the value is in getting them to ask the right questions. And when they leave, they should still have questions. It just might motivate them to want to read the play, and help them understand it better when they do.

I subscribe to a service called “SiteMeter” which allows me to see a limited amount of information about my visitors. One thing that I can see is if someone finds my site via a Google search, and what they were searching for.

Once a week (or so), I check in on what searches people have done to find themselves at Shakespeare Teacher, and to respond to those search terms in the name of fun and public service. All of the following searches brought people to this site in the past week.

At long last, this site is the first hit in a Google search for “Shakespeare Teacher” which means that it’s the default for the “I’m Feeling Lucky” option. So you’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky. Well, do ya, punk?

Abraham Lincoln didn’t die while reading Macbeth; he was shot in the back of the head while attending the theatre. The play wasn’t Shakespeare, but the assassin was Edwin Booth’s brother, so that’s close enough.

Lincoln was a huge fan of Macbeth. Five days before his own assassination, he read aloud passages from the play that dealt with Duncan’s assassination to the Marquis de Chambrun. These passages haunted him, much as the chilling coincidence has the power to haunt us.

The Tudors were a dynasty of English monarchs that rose to power when Henry Tudor defeated King Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 to become King Henry VII. The line ended with the death of his granddaughter Queen Elizabeth I in 1603.

Shakespeare was born in England in 1564, during the reign of Elizabeth, and therefore spent most of his life living under Tudor rule. There are also Tudor connections in two of Shakespeare’s history plays. Richard III ends with Henry VII coming to power, and Henry VIII is the story of Elizabeth’s famous father.

I’m not sure. The last vision is, I believe, the show of eight kings, and it seems like Macbeth gets the message: Banquo will be the father to a line of kings. However, Macbeth does go on to try to change his fate, which doesn’t seem to be possible in this world, so maybe that’s the message Macbeth doesn’t get.

My take is that he understands the prophecies, and accepts them as long as they are to his advantage, but when things go badly, he decides to take matters into his own hands, trying vainly (!) to usurp fate as he had usurped so much else.

Evince!

Great question! Usually if I’m teaching Shakespeare, I’m teaching a particular play. If students are new to Shakespeare, I don’t jump into the language right away. I try to structure activities that interest students in the world of the play, the themes, the characters, and the plot.

When I am ready to introduce students to Shakespeare’s language, I do so by giving them a speech from the play we’re about to read, as well as the lyrics to a popular rap song. We then compare and contrast the way language is used in both texts.

I leave the task of responding to the remaining search terms to my readers:

what rule did shakespeare change

how shakespeare affected Galileo

why was shakespeare so successful

a physical description of puck the mischievous sprite

henry the eighth for 10 year olds

shakespeare’s idea of humor

Well, I am pleased to report that the Cymbeline project turned out very well.

For their video project, the 8th grade class I was working with decided to create a modern-day talk show (instead of a reality show) with characters from Shakespeare’s Cymbeline as guests. The show includes scenes from the original play, an alternate ending, and a commercial for a Cymbeline video game… all written, performed, and produced by the students!

They presented their video at an in-school film festival, and represented their school at a citywide film festival hosted by my organization. And now, through the magic of the Internet, I share the video with you:

If you want to share this video with others, you can link directly to this post or embed the video from its TeacherTube page (where you can also watch the video if you have trouble loading it in here). We will also be featuring the video on the school’s home page.

UPDATE: The kids put the video on YouTube. It’s a much higher quality than what I was able to post to TeacherTube, so if you want to embed the video on your site, you should use that one.

So I started Cymbeline with the 8th grade class today. I posted a request for suggestions yesterday, but the answer was staring right back at me from the post itself. Show the students the Taming of the Shrew video that the 11th grade students made.

We did a basic K/W/L activity on Shakespeare and the teacher was so impressed by her students’ prior knowledge that she decided to let the students choose the play. But they didn’t really know very many plays, though one student remarked that Romeo and Juliet was “so played out.”

I showed them the Shrew video, and invited them to discuss at their tables how they would do the project differently. They came up with some great ideas, and earnest critiques of the project. They also decided that they wanted to do The Taming of the Shrew. Yeah, because Romeo and Juliet is “so played out.”

We discussed some other plays, including As You Like It and Othello, which seemed to be strong contenders. One of the students asked about Cymbeline, and the teacher gave a brief description of the opening situation with Imogen, Cymbeline, Posthumous, Cloten, and the wicked Queen. I talked about how Iachimo bet Postumous that he could seduce his wife. The teacher described with some detail how Iachimo was able to “win” his bet, as it slowly dawned on me why we don’t teach this play. Still, it’s Shakespeare, and we’re totally going to get away with it. I described the beheading of Cloten, and now all the students want to do Cymbeline.

So we ended up where we started on the play, but at least the students now have ownership of the choice. I’m looking forward to seeing what they do with it.

UPDATE: The project has been completed.