Stuff
Hamlet for High School
David Mathews
Westinghouse High School
Overview
Rationale
Objectives
Strategies
Classroom Activities
Bibliography
Appendix
Overview
Of the thirty-seven plays William Shakespeare is credited with writing none has enjoyed more popularity than
Hamlet
.
Hamlet
has been performed on stage more than any other play, more film adap tations have been made of
Hamlet
and you could fill libraries with the number of arti cles and criticisms written about
Hamlet
. Just as the title role is the crowning glory in the care ers of many actors, many believe that
Hamlet
is the crowning glory of the career of the man responsible for some of the best drama written in the English language.
Hamlet
also remains a staple in high school and college curriculums and has been read in classrooms around the world.
In this unit, which is designed for use in a general English classroom, students will learn to appreciate Shakes peare’s life and career along w ith his gift for language and his ability to identify the soul of man, wh ile entertaining audiences for over four hundred years. Students will also be able to iden tify and analyze Shakespeare’s use of literary devices and be able to respond both orally and in writing to the play that they have read.
The unit will discuss the reasons why we still teach Shakespeare using some of the ideas in Rex Gibson’s
Teaching Shakespeare.
The unit will also cover some of the literary devices seen in
Hamlet
, including an at length disc ussion of how Shakespeare uses imagery to depict theme and tone. For this, I will use W.H. Clemen’s article
“Imagery in
Hamlet
Reveals Character and Theme.” The unit will also examine issues of time and space as they are somewhat confusing to the reader. Harley Granville-Barker’s esay “Place and Time in
Hamlet
” is excellent source mate rial for explaining why
Shakespeare seems to ignore time and space in th e play. In the unit, we will
David Mathews
Westinghouse High School
Overview
Rationale
Objectives
Strategies
Classroom Activities
Bibliography
Appendix
Overview
Of the thirty-seven plays William Shakespeare is credited with writing none has enjoyed more popularity than
Hamlet
.
Hamlet
has been performed on stage more than any other play, more film adap tations have been made of
Hamlet
and you could fill libraries with the number of arti cles and criticisms written about
Hamlet
. Just as the title role is the crowning glory in the care ers of many actors, many believe that
Hamlet
is the crowning glory of the career of the man responsible for some of the best drama written in the English language.
Hamlet
also remains a staple in high school and college curriculums and has been read in classrooms around the world.
In this unit, which is designed for use in a general English classroom, students will learn to appreciate Shakes peare’s life and career along w ith his gift for language and his ability to identify the soul of man, wh ile entertaining audiences for over four hundred years. Students will also be able to iden tify and analyze Shakespeare’s use of literary devices and be able to respond both orally and in writing to the play that they have read.
The unit will discuss the reasons why we still teach Shakespeare using some of the ideas in Rex Gibson’s
Teaching Shakespeare.
The unit will also cover some of the literary devices seen in
Hamlet
, including an at length disc ussion of how Shakespeare uses imagery to depict theme and tone. For this, I will use W.H. Clemen’s article
“Imagery in
Hamlet
Reveals Character and Theme.” The unit will also examine issues of time and space as they are somewhat confusing to the reader. Harley Granville-Barker’s esay “Place and Time in
Hamlet
” is excellent source mate rial for explaining why
Shakespeare seems to ignore time and space in th e play. In the unit, we will