activities

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!

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Greetings Teachers!

As an educator, I am in awe of all the hard work teachers do. They do more than just educate, they maintain discipline, nurture young minds, foster curiosity, volunteer, inspire, and give hours of their time, money, and passion.

I’ve tried to make this blog a resource for teachers as well as students and since I know a lot of you have testing to do, you probably could use some quick, simple activities and lesson plans to get your class past the fourth quarter and on to the finish line! So first, here’s a bunch of my resources and lesson plans that you’re welcome to use as you will:

  1. My top 10 Shakespeare apps: My Top Ten Shakespearean Apps For Teachers and Students, Part 1 and My Top Ten Shakespearean Apps For Teachers and Students, Part 2
  2. My Macbeth Digital Escape Room: Activities for Students and Teachers: Macbeth Escape Room
  3. My Shakespeare Website (useful for web quests) Resources for Teachers and Students: A Visit To Elizabethan London
  4. Activities For Students and Teachers: “The Comedy Of Errors.”
  5. Activities For Teachers and Students: Mock Trial of Romeo and Juliet
  6. Activities For Students and Teachers: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Also, please check out my reviews of Shakespeare movies to decide which ones are good for your class (More on that later).

Finally, here are some words of encouragement from Shakespeare himself:

O, let my books be then the eloquence
And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,
Who plead for love and look for recompense
More than that tongue that more hath more express’d.
O, learn to read what silent love hath writ:
To hear with eyes belongs to love’s fine wit.

— Sonnet 23

Summer Shakespeare courses!

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Multi Week Courses Available this summer!
Trailer for my summer Shakespeare Courses!

I’m beyond excited that I am able to offer three multiple week courses through Outschool for kids aged 6-12. If you scan the QR code below, you can see class descriptions and individual trailers. You can also check out the “My classes,” Page on this blog. I hope you and your family will join me this summer!

Pericles’ Crazy Spring Break

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It’s April, so it’s about to be spring break. Also, Shakespeare’s birthday 🎂 is coming up, so I thought I’d honor him this year by highlighting some hidden gems of Shakespeare’s plays.

Title Page for Pericles, Prince of Tyre

Shakespeare’s Pericles is an incredible odyssey where the hero goes to many exotic locations and has many adventures, so I thought I’d summarize the action of the play using the device of… vacation photos!

Part 1: Pericles’ Vacation In Antioch

Travel brochure for Antioch, where Pericles finds himself in Act I.

Part II, Scaped beheaded, now he’s wedded!

Pericles’ vacation video where he gets shipwrecked, finds a suit of armor, wins a joust, falls in love, and gets married all in a few days!

Part III: The worst Cruise ever

Pericles reviews the ship 🚢 that took him to Tarsus.

Part IV: Beauty(?) Regimen

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/6GrZ9x2jBUs

Part V: Family reunion at Ephesus

Pericles Reunion T-Shirt.\

Resources for National Poetry Month

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I’m teaching a number of clases on poetry this National Poetry Month, and I wanted to make suggestion if you want to woo a sweetheart this poetry month but don’t know where to start. So here are some resources for you you use, and some links to some of my own work on the subject:

1. Mindup.com

This website is very good at helping you organize your writing into small blocks, webs, charts, etc. This is really useful when you’re creating sonnets because it helps you set up your argument. You can even add pictures to think about the images you’re going to use in your poem!.

2. RHymezone.com

https://www.rhymezone.com/

A MUST for any poet. This website allows you to find rhymes for any word.

3. Poem Generator.uk

https://www.poem-generator.org.uk/

This website is very fun and useful for teachers and students. You plug in various adjectives, verbs, and nouns and it does the rest. The sonnets aren’t great, but you do get a clear idea of how sonnets work, and that makes it very useful for students.

A sample sonnet I made about money.

3. Folger.edu- How to Write a sonnet

One of the best pieces of advice I can give to an aspiring poet is to read other poets and learn what you like. The Folger has a yearly competition of student sonnets which you can read on their website, and lots of handouts and info that teaches you about sonnet form, so check it out!

https://www.folger.edu/shakespeare-birthday-party-at-home/write-a-sonnet

4. My Mini lecture video: Shakespeare’s sonnets

My mini-lecture on Shakespeare’s Sonnets

5. My post on sonnet writing, with more resources and advice:

https://shakespeareanstudent.com/2017/02/17/how-to-write-romantic-poetry-like-shakespeare/

6. My OUtschool Classes on Sonnets and Shakespeare’s writing:

If you want some one-on-one help with writing Elizabethan poetry, consider signing up for my online classes! I teach 2 classes on writing poetry and literary devices:

Love Poetry: Shakespeare Style

This class is a live brainstorming session where I’ll teach you to use the resources I’ve listed above to craft an Elizabethan sonnet of your very own! We’ll also discuss some of Shakespeare’s own sonnets, and the enduring mystery of the Dark Lady and the Fair Young Man.

Trailer video fo “Love Poetry: Shakespeare Style”
Page Icon for my Outschool class on Shakespearean writing.

https://outschool.com/classes/d9a6c17e-7ec2-4839-8337-152da6beaeb7/schedule#usMaRDyJ13

This class is a general intro to Shakespeare’s writing. I discuss the structure of his plays and poems, and I play a fun game where I rewrite some very famous lines in iambic pentameter:

So thanks for reading this list! I hope this helps you out, and if you do consider signing up for my class, I’m offering a special discount for the Love Poetry course: Get $5 off my class “Love Poetry- Shakespeare Style!” with coupon code HTHESVFDPO5 until May 5, 2022. Get started at https://outschool.com/classes/love-poetry-shakespeare-style-k8lL9yLK and enter the coupon code at checkout.

Let thy verse flow like a river, ye merry balladiers!