English
Hamlet Reading and Discussing Shakespeare: Flexible Schedule
In this 5-week class, students will read and discuss Shakespeare's play, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark #academic
14-18
year olds
1-6
learners per class
$75
Charged upfront
$15 per week
Flexible schedule
Over 5 weeks
No live meetings
There are no open spots for this class, but you can request another time or scroll down to find more classes like this.
Description
Class Experience
Hamlet is Shakespeare's tragedy about revenge, power, and ultimately death. Hamlet is required reading for a lot of high school students. It is the perfect story for group discussion and analysis because Shakespeare's language and word choices can be hard to appreciate and understand when reading alone. Students will read one act a week on their own time. Each act contains 2-7 scenes. (Longer scenes will be broken into 2-3 smaller, more manageable chunks of reading.) A separate video will...
Week One: Act 1 (Scenes 1-5) Week Two: Act 2 (Scenes 1-2) Scene 2 is longer and will be broken down into 3 separate readings Week Three: Act 3 (Scenes 1-4) Week Four: Act 4 (Scenes 1-7) Week Five: Act 5 (Scenes 1-2) Scene 5 is also long and will be broken down into 2 separate readings
I have a Master's degree in Writing for Children and Young Adults. I was a substitute teacher for three years before teaching full-time on Outschool for multiple years. I have been blessed to discuss Shakespeare in the classroom multiple times, including my own high school reading experience! My high school English teacher was obsessed with Shakespeare and taught me the importance of understanding these often tragic plays. I learned a lot from her enthusiasm and hope to pass that passion on to my own students. I have read this play multiple times, but I learn something new every time I am exposed to this story. It is an excellent book to discuss because there is so much language and subtext to analyze. I am excited to read it alongside your student to see what emotions and feelings Shakespeare's writings stir up for them.
Students will read one act a week on their own time in. Each act contains 2-7 scenes. Each week, students will have access to 3-7 new videos and a corresponding worksheet with vocabulary definitions, discussion questions and places for fill-in-the blank answers. Each week, I assign a short writing assignment focused around that week's discussion questions and ask the students to share their responses in the classroom. There is a weekly Kahoot and supplemental daily activities (for days with no video) like an I Spy game, riddles and interactive questions to test their comprehension from the weekly chapters.
The students will need their own copy of Hamlet to read on their own. It can be borrowed from the library or even listened to as an audio book. The students will not need a physical copy of the story in class, although they may find it helpful to have when completing the writing assignments. I use a well-annotated edition that explains difficult words and constructions in class, but students may want an annotated edition for their own reading as well.
In addition to the Outschool classroom, this class uses:
The more questions, comments, and posts that students share in the classroom, the more I can understand their knowledge and comprehension of the topics we are discussing. Please let me know if a grade is required.
No live meetings, and an estimated 2 - 4 hours per week outside of class.
From commonsensemedia.org: While there is no profanity -- apart from "damn" and "God" -- the dialogue is often hard to follow for those unfamiliar with Shakespearean plays. There are few positive messages from the movie, with characters motivated by revenge and power. A key theme of the movie is death, and while very little is depicted graphically, characters talk about it consistently, and several are killed both on and off screen. A character dies by suicide -- drowning -- but this is shown in abstract form. There are sword fighting scenes and some characters die after being poisoned. But it all feels dramatic rather than violent or scary. There is some depiction of drunkenness. Hamlet has a relationship with his mother, Gertrude, that's steeped in subtext. The Acts either contain many scenes or long scenes, which can be challenging for some readers.
Teacher
About Me
I currently teach English Composition at the collegiate level. I have a Master's degree in Creative Writing for Children and Young Adults, so I teach reading and writing classes. I worked as a substitute teacher for 3 years, in all age ranges and...
