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Most elementary teachers who work once a week on Shakespeare get in about 20-25 sessions in a yearlong project. You have to allow for interruptions of holidays, testing days, track and field day, and so forth.

So here is an outline of a sample sequence of activities, lessons, and steps for students in grades 4 and 5. As with most of our other pages, this can be adapted up or down the grade level scale.

Week one:

Introduction of project – quick and energetic talk on where you’re headed

10 minutes of showing and reading portions of Bard of Avon picture book, especially to show images of theater; discuss differences between Shakespeare’s stage and modern theaters; discuss the idea of the audience being actively involved with their imaginations, rather than passively viewing images on a movie or TV screen; discuss ramifications of daytime performance, especially for scenes set at night – what might Shakespeare do to make this work, in the language?

“I’ll follow you” exercise – 20 minutes

Ask students to memorize Puck speech for homework

Week two:

Return to Puck performance – see if group can remember individual parts and perform again

See who can perform Puck solo after homework assignment

Begin to lay out the rituals and traditions for working on Shakespeare – how to gather in a circle, how to move desks aside and move them back later, how to hand out texts

Introduce ensemble games – start with “Yes!” and “Group Sculptures!”, keeping them focused and controlled Look at one two-character exchange; begin to tell more of story of “Midsummer.” Begin with Duke and Hippolyta in Scene One, just the opening lines. (See our Texts for Classroom Use section for these.) Read aloud, discuss words; ask for pairs of volunteers to stand at desks and perform with energy and projection.

For homework, ask students to choose either character’s lines to learn

Week three:

See who learned lines – begin to get a sense of who is coming through for you with this. Ask for those who know the lines to take turns standing up and performing the scene exchange “off book.” Begin to discuss what makes a good performance.

Take another two-character exchange – Hermia and Duke. Continue to tell elements of the story, focusing on the first few scenes. Again, ask for volunteers. Focus on encouraging everyone to stand up and at least try it.

Continue to sharpen traditions and rituals, procedures; return to one of the ensemble games, add a new one – “Three Worlds” is good here to introduce the three groups in the play.

For homework, ask students to learn new lines in the Hermia-Duke exchange.

Week four:

Use the narrated version of Scene 1 (Text section has this) and work on this as a class. Take turns reading the narration and the lines. Let students try different characters. Continue to choose key words to build into a class vocabulary list.

Ask for volunteers to stand and perform sections of this scene, with two or three standing narrators sharing the lines.

For homework, ask students to choose any 6 lines to learn by next week, from any character.

Tell students there will be no role assignments for a few more weeks; for now you are focusing on learning the play as a group.

Week five:

Work on Scene 2 today, the narrated version. Get to know the craftsmen. Let everyone have a turn doing Nick Bottom’s “Raging rocks” speech. Then do this as a “Group Voice” exercise, everyone at once.

See who learned 6 lines and ask everyone to take a turn standing to perform. Begin to build a core of students who are fired up and doing the work; continue to nudge and encourage those dragging their feet.

For homework, students learn 8 lines of Bottom or Quince.

Week six:

Explore Scene 3 – Divide the Puck lines amongst the boys, and the Fairy lines amongst the girls, and build two “teams.” Then work up to the”Oberon vs. Titania showdown” exercise in the Activities section. This is a fun “battle of the sexes” scene; students can take turns being Oberon and Titania.

Most of the major characters have been introduced; consider role assignments now. You probably won’t have time to read through each scene with the class before beginning workon the performance. Look at edited texts and think about how much the students can take on in the remaining 14 weeks. Allow flexibility, so that those who pick up lines quickly can add some lines or pick up a second character.

For homework, ask students to learn Oberon and Titania battle lines. Challenge them to go beyond your expectations; remind them that what you see from homework effort plays into the amount of responsibility (ie, lines) given in the class play.

Continue to mix in ensemble play activities and focus on rituals and traditions – especially singing if you can build it in.

Week seven:

Assign roles. Remind students that this is a group effort, it’s not about who plays what role.

Do a read-through on feet of as much as you can of your chosen text. See how long it is; identify trouble spots. Then begin work on the first scene; explore it in action, asking class for ideas about how to layer in action, gesture. Begin to focus on stage awareness – facing out to audience, projecting voice, not blocking others. Keep “blocking” open for now – allow students to improvise movements, but give them some simple entrance and exit directions if need be.

Homework: Begin learning lines!

Weeks eight through sixteen:

By Week twelve, everyone should be “off book.” A few will lag behind – share their lines with others if necessary. Continue building scenes, working on each one. Create an environment in which the kids can work in groups outside or in some open space and you can circulate to observe and make suggestions.

Along the way, take time for writing if possible. Ask students to write an imaginary autobiography of their character, or an illustrated life history. Ask them to create “scenes Shakespeare left out.” Have them write a newspaper account of the events in the play. There are all sorts of ways to integrate writing, once the kids get excited about the work.

Shakespeare research projects are fun and bring new insights to the class play, but you can’t really have two big projects going at once, so if you can, use other Language Arts time for more in-depth research and paper-writing.

Begin discussing the final performance, layering in any props or costume pieces, working on a program, posters, etc. Ask students to write about their experience in one or two paragraphs, and include these in program: their favorite characters, why they like Shakespeare, why they like the play, what they’ve learned, if they want to learn more about Shakespeare…

Weeks seventeen through nineteen:

Allow two weeks to focus solely on the final performance. You will need to do “dress performances” to make sure everyone is ready. Try to get small audiences for those, to put a bit of pressure on the kids and let them work out of any remaining stage fright.

Plan a final party, and allow time in the final week for writing and reflection on the Shakespeare project.

Mount and display all student writing and artwork related to the performance, so that parents and other guests can see these on the night of the play.

Week twenty

Final peformance(s). Final class celebration. Writing about the final performance, how it felt, what new was learned. Thoughts on how it could be even better next year…

As you can see, the 20 weeks go by quickly!

The trick is to find that balance between exploration and open-ended investigating in the first part of the project, and preparing for a performance in the second part. We want the students to experience a learning process and let the play emerge out of that, rather than emphasizing the final performance from the get-go. But you also want to be sure everyone has a great performance, so the experience ends on a positive and joyous note.