Many Shakespeare plays would run well in excess of 3½ hours if they were not cut. 'It is very rare to see a Shakespeare play in performance that has not been cut in some way. The first time, students should just listen and then the second time, students should make notes as they listen. Read the following text (a short passage from a longer section on cutting the text taken from Fiona Banks’ book Creative Shakespeare) twice. Students could then do a dictogloss activity in groups of four. What would the implications be of different kinds of ‘cuts’? What, as directors, would they need to bear in mind? cut lines from lots of different scenes.Show students a scene by scene summary of the play, and ask them to discuss whether it would be preferable to: Students could then compare their findings and comment on similarities and differences this could lead to a discussion of the similarities and differences between tragedies, comedies and histories.Īsk students to summarise the plot of Romeo and Juliet as a mini-saga, and share and compare students’ different versions. Which parts of the play emerge from this exercise as essential to include in their own stage production?Īsk students to imagine that they need to cut an hour’s worth of material from their productions of Romeo and Juliet. By way of an extension activity, mix in some sets of cards relating to another Shakespeare play or more than one play. Through feedback, you could elicit students’ reasoning as to the placement of the cards in the five boxes to create the arc of the story: beginning – build-up/rising action – problem – resolution/falling action - ending. This template has five blank boxes to illustrate the structure of the five act play and five cards showing summaries of each of the five acts to arrange in the correct order. Students should turn to the Story Mountain handout in the Student Booklet. Key words: cuts, editing, genre, mini-saga, organisation, plot, resolution, script, story, structure
The 'Teachers' Guide' download explains how best to use Teach Shakespeare and also contains a bibliography and appendices referencing the resources used throughout.ĭo I understand how Shakespeare’s plays are structured and organised?ĭo I understand the basic plot and structure of Romeo and Juliet?ĭo I understand how to make cuts to the text successfully? Activities mentioned in these resources are available in a separate downloadable 'Student Booklet', also at the bottom of this page.
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These lesson plans are available in the Downloads section at the bottom of this page. If you would like to teach the play in greater detail, use the advanced KS4/5 Lesson Plans. If students are new to the play, we suggest you start with these introductory KS3 Lesson Plans. In order to benefit fully from these lesson plans, we recommend you use them in the following order: This will help them to gain crucial close-reading skills. Tasks include: actively exploring the rhythm of the play through games finding examples of literary terms in key scenes and performing a close-reading of Act 1, Scene 1, including the Prince's speech. In these lessons, students will learn how to read and respond to the text of the play.