Shakespeare Unit Study

A couple of days ago while perusing through a used book store I came upon this little gem. Shakespeare Plays in the Classroom Twelfth Night for grades 6-9. I am going to admit that neither myself or Grace care that much for Shakespeare but we do try to address one of his plays each year. Finding this little book for .99 has narrowed us down to Twelfth Night for this year. This book really got my creative juices flowing and decided to make a unit study to go along with it. Over the next couple of weeks we will put everything else on the back burner and just do our Shakespeare Study. Actually this comes at a great time because I only have to write one review and then the TOS Review Crew is on hiatus until January. This gives us lots of time to concentrate on some other avenues of learning. I also want to mention that all the information will be recorded by art journaling and notebooking. Here is what I have come up with so far for the unit study:

Where was Shakespeare born?
What do we know about his life?
His family?
What was English like during this time?
Were his plays popular then?
What was the life of an actor and playwright like in Elizabethan England?

Read pages 5 - 6 about The Life and Times of William Shakespeare. Create an art journal page for every couple of paragraphs of information.

Read pages 7-8 about The Elizabethan Stage. Create either journal pages of the stage or create a diorama.

Read pages 9 - 14 These pages deal with explaining each act of the Twelfth Night. Create art journal pages to depict each act of the play.

Create an art journal page with the cast list.

Read the play which is included in the book with easier to understand language. Between each act are activities we will do such as: Discussion questions, writing assignments, alternate endings, dialogue, etc.

Create Vocabulary Flash Cards from words in the play.

Watch a a dvd or on youtube the play Twelfth Night.

Talk about the language of Shakespeare. Pick lines from his play that are still used today, such as: Apple of her eye, One Fell Swoop, etc.

Build a replica of the globe theatre or create a board game about Shakespeare.

Create a How - Two Pamphlet - From Viola's perspective - How to convince others you are a man or From Duke Orsino's perspective - How to woo the woman of your dreams.

Create Scene Titles for each Act of the play.

Research the holiday, Twelfth Night, and answer the following questions:
Why do you think Shakespeare named his play "Twelfth Night"?
Does the play have anything to do with the holiday?
Why do you think Shakespeare wrote this type of play for the celebration?

Create a quarto Cover.

Create a depiction of The Four Elements that Sir Toby talks about in Act Two.

Create a poster for the play.

Research the Renaissance Feast and conduct a traditional one for the family.

As you can see all of this should keep us pretty busy until the Thanksgiving holidays. We will still cover math, a little science and her writing assignments for her essay class. Otherwise it will be all things Shakespeare. I will keep you posted on how it is going.

Don't forget about the upcoming giveaway of two math books. Visit here to enter.