READING SHAKESPEARE WITH YOUNG ADULTS

By Mary Ellen Dakin. The author seeks to help teachers better understand not just how to teach the Bard’s work, but also why. By celebrating the collaborative reading of Shakespeare’s plays, Dakin explores different methods for getting students engaged—and excited—about the texts as they learn to construct meaning from Shakespeare’s 16th-century language and connect it to their 21st-century lives. Filled with teacher-tested classroom activities, this book draws on often-taught plays, including:

• Hamlet
• Macbeth
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream
• Julius Caesar
• Romeo and Juliet

The ideas and strategies presented here are designed to be used with any of the Bard’s plays and are intended to help all populations of students—mainstream, minority, bilingual, advanced, at-risk. Grades 6–12. Notes. Works cited. Index. NCTE. 233 pages. ©2009.

Sample pages