Director

Rehearsal Diary

Set design

Costume design

Literacy Objectives
Weekly Plans
Further Ideas

Literacy Objectives

(Objectives are taken from Term 1 as the project is in the Autumn term. A study of a Shakespeare play is also specifically mentioned in this term for Year 6.)
For ideas to meet these objectives, see the Year 6 Literacy weekly planner and Year 5 suggestions, the list of further ideas and the project outline.

Year 6 Term 1

Year 5 Term 1

Weekly plan, year 6

(Year 6 Literacy plan, Year 5 suggestions and independent / guided activities produced for the first project by Fiona Brunt, former Education Liaison Officer at Sheffield Theatres.)

This is a suggested framework and may need to be adapted depending on your children’s prior knowledge and learning of literacy objectives and drama activities. See below for ideas to use the plan for Year 5.

The examples are generic and could be used with any of Shakespeare’s plays, as long as the class have a basic understanding of plot, themes and characters.

For texts, see appendix 1.

DAY/ NLS/KS OBJECTIVE	A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM SHARED READING	ROMEO AND JULIET SHARED READING
Monday W7 T5 Text 1 game/ words written on card to pair up	Introduce the text (Text 1):- its whereabouts in the plot, characters involved, events, dialogue immediately previous to speech. Shared reading of Text 1 Pick out unknown and unusual vocabulary. Play ‘paired words’. Children give reasons for decisions e.g. on meaning, sound, alliteration, ‘old’ words. Choose phrase for still image, eg ‘admiring of his qualitie’/’things base and vile’ – Children represent phrases and associated emotions in a still image. Discuss Helena’s mood from these phrases.	Introduce the text (text 1):- its whereabouts in the plot, characters involved, events, dialogue immediately previous to speech. Shared reading of Text 1 Pick out unknown and unusual vocabulary. Play ‘paired words’. Children give reasons for decisions e.g. on meaning, sound, alliteration, ‘old’ words. Choose up to 3 words. Children represent words and associated emotions in a still image. (e.g. inseparable, friends)
Tuesday W7 T3 Text 2/2a words and meanings	Review words on cards from Monday. Try and put into columns headed old verb      unusual endings       words ‘st               thou Match words with meanings (card game). Shared reading Text 2 Notice any word order changes. Ask for words to describe characters emotions at this time. Brainstorm own emotion words. Split speeches into small phrases, experimenting with different ways it can be recited to represent range of emotions. (Extension:- suggest simple gesture to reinforce the emotion for the above examples.)	Review words on cards from Monday. Try and put into columns headed old verb     unusual endings      words ‘st              thou Match words with meanings (card game). Shared reading Text 2 Notice any word order changes. Ask for words to describe characters emotions at this time. Brainstorm own emotion words. Split speech (2a) into small phrases, experimenting with different ways it can be recited to represent range of emotions. (Extension:- suggest simple gesture to reinforce the emotion for the above examples.)
Wednesday S1 T6	Discuss children’s views on types of love. Focus on Text 2. Use Demetrius, Helena and Hermia for tableau. Children choose a character and adopt position of that person. Others join to complete tableau of that scene. How might the characters be feeling/what could they say to each other? Record some ideas in speech bubbles. Begin to model writing dialogue between the characters, voicing their opinions, reasoning and motivations. (Modern re-telling.) Remind children to use knowledge of plot so far - who loves who?	Discuss the views on love shown in 2 texts, and senses of future tragedy through language and imagery. Focus on Text 2. Children choose a character and adopt position of that person. Others join to complete tableau of that scene. How might the characters be feeling/what could they say to each other? Record some ideas in speech bubbles. Begin to model writing dialogue between the characters, voicing their opinions, reasoning and motivations. (Modern re-telling.) Remind children to use previous knowledge of plot when writing speech bubbles. Eg: Romeo and Juliet’s love was secret; Juliet gone against father’s wishes, her husband has just killed her cousin. (Could further dialogue/advice by including a character as Juliet’s friend.)
Thursday S1 T6	Circle:- Continue discussion on different types of love, especially the exaggerated imagery used in Text 2. Corridor of Love:- Use Helena and Demetrius. ‘Corridor’ children add own ideas about what each character could say, focus on ‘over the top’ language of love. Shared Writing:- Own love letter to film/pop star.	Corridor of advice try with Romeo and Juliet and nurse. Recall Tuesday’s activity - reading Juliet’s speech and different emotions. Re read speech - break up into phrases serpent heart/moving face/beautiful tyrant/friend angelical. Repeat corridor activity for Juliet, each child saying phrase with own emphasis and emotion. Examine contradictions when each phrase recalling Juliet’s line “My only love spring from my only hate!” (1.5.137) Look for contradictions in Text 1. Shared Writing - contradictory phrases (could be transformed into poems) eg about love, hate, war, silence - encourage children’s ideas.
Friday S1 T4 & 6 Text 3	Re-read Demetrius speech, (Text 2) Tap rhythm - noticing length of lines and syllables (iambic pentameter) - or called free verse. (Brief information about Shakespeare’s language and prose/blank verse) mark out ‘beat’ on words of speech - how it would be said naturally with meaning. Try and apply same rhythm to Thursday’s shared writing. Model editing and re-drafting (Doesn’t have to fit regularly throughout). (Extension - re-examine chosen vocabulary - improve to include alliteration if possible.)	Re-read Juliet’s speech (Text 2) Tap rhythm - noticing length of lines and syllables (iambic pentameter) - or called free verse. (Brief information about Shakespeare’s language and prose/blank verse) mark out ‘beat’ on words of speech - how it would be said naturally with meaning. Try and apply same rhythm to Thursday’s shared writing. Model editing and re-drafting (Doesn’t have to fit regularly throughout). (Extension - re-examine chosen vocabulary - improve to include alliteration if possible.)

Adapting the plan for Year 5, term 1.

S1                     Use synonyms when describing emotions of characters (Tuesday,                           Wednesday).

T5                     Group words and discuss shades of meaning.

W10                 Write dialogue, in narrative form, compare with speech in playscript.
S7                    Model conventions.

S8                    Use adverbs, discussing how the character could be speaking.
T5

S4                    Wednesday’s activity could be changed to a simple, retelling around                          a scene adapting the text for a particular reader.

T5                    Wednesday’s retelling could be used as a stimulus to begin writing                          playscripts, building their own ideas and actions into the scene.                          Refer to the original play with children to identify conventions.
T 18, 19, 20

Independent / guided activities

All the shared reading and writing activities can be adapted for group work:

- adding old verb endings

- dictionary work (meanings of words on cards)

- prepare a different still image representing words from text

- simplify language into modern day prose

- fill in own table from another speech

- write own first person diary entry linked to corridor of advice

- write own advice to character in letter form.

Further ideas

• MEDIA REPORTS

Newspaper – write a report or series of reports following one of the stories. Include reports in a class newspaper with other articles, e.g. wedding announcements, adverts for tailoring, carpentry etc, weather reports and other events (see particularly Titania’s speech, Act 2, scene 1, lines 81 –117).

TV news – prepare reports, either using parts of the text, as in the opening of Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet or writing and presenting a daily report from Athenian TV following the story. Include interviews, reporters on the spot etc. Use words or phrases from the text or present the reports completely in modern language.

Talk shows, e.g. Trisha. Include, for example daughters disobeying their fathers, lovers who change their minds. Introduce the guests and include comment from the audience, who could also be in role.

TV interviews – prepare a series of questions as a TV interviewer. These could be in the style of an interviewer such as Parkinson or a Breakfast TV presenter.

• ROLE ON THE WALL AND HOTSEATING

Children draw a large outline of the character they are interested in and write down everything they know about that character, based on the play. They also add other details which they think are in keeping with what they know.

One person from the group appears in role as that character; they may have a prop or piece of costume to help them get into role and could walk in as the character to sit on the “hotseat”. Other children are now asked questions and the person in the hotseat attempts to answer in role. If this is challenging for the class, the teacher or other adult can appear in role in the hotseat.

• LETTERS

The class write letters or a series of letters as a character to a friend. Working in pairs, the friend could write back with advice. Similarly, pairs could write as a a character to an agony aunt, who then replies.

Letters from two or more different characters (e.g. Helena and Demetrius when she follows him into the wood) can be put side by side to compare point of view.

• DIARY ENTRIES

Children write diary entries for characters at critical moments, for example Hermia’s decision to disobey her father and elope with Lysander; Demetrius’s entry showing his change of heart from Hermia to Helena; Helena when Demetrius and Lysander both say they love her.

These can also be turned into monologues for performance.

• STILL IMAGES, SPEECH BUBBLES AND CAPTIONS

Provide a set of cards with either pictures or writing that tell the story of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (about 5 or 6 depending on how many children you have and how many groups you want). Copy each card so that each child has a card and tell the class how many different cards there are so that they know they will be looking for 4 or 5 others. At this point, the class need to be completely silent and not reveal their card to anyone else.

Still without speaking, the children now move around the room and try to find people with a different card until their group is complete. Now they put themselves in order, starting with the first event of the story and ending with the weddings.

Once all the groups have done this, leave each group with only one card, which they need to make a still image of. Show the images in order and ask the rest of the class to suggest a caption for the image and to add speech bubbles. You could also add thought bubbles to reveal the actual thoughts of the characters at that time.

As an extension, take photos of the still images and add the captions and speech bubbles to make a book of the story. At this stage children could also be directed to the text to include the actual words spoken. A modern version and an authentic one can be made, with captions in Shakespearean language in the latter.

• WRITING POETRY INSPIRED BY THE TEXT

Taking a particular speech, remove a class of words, e.g. verbs or adjectives, or a selection of words (for example: blows / nodding / sleeps / lull’d / over-canopied / luscious from Oberon’s speech, Act 2, scene 2, lines 248 – 256).
Discuss these and ask the children to write their own poems or pieces of descriptive writing using all or most of the words. This can actually be done before children meet the text and the moods and themes compared to the original.
For a selection of ideas on creative writing around Shakespeare, see Fred Sedgwick’s Shakespeare and the Young Writer (see suggested books).

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