Shakespeare Writing Assignments

I just gave an assignment that might be of interest to readers of this blog. It’s for a graduate course in English Education, so the students are all either currently English teachers or are studying to be. This is an extra-credit assignment for students who need to make up for missing class, but other years I have assigned it to everyone.

1. Translate a scene from Shakespeare (minimum 36 lines) from Shakespeare’s Early Modern English to our American English of the 21rst century. This should be a line-by-line translation.

2. Take a text that was written in the last ten years (most likely a song) and annotate it for an audience reading it 400 years from now who might not understand our idiomatic language or our cultural references. Please choose a text that is conducive to this activity. Minimum 14 footnotes.

3. Write an original piece in iambic pentameter. It can be anything you want, as long as it’s one cohesive piece that is at least 14 lines of iambic pentameter.

4. Discuss your experience completing these three activities and your assessment of their value as assignments in the English classroom.

Does anyone have anything to add to the list? I’m not looking for more work to give my grad students; I’m just starting a brainstorm of writing assignments that would give high school students a broader view of Shakespeare.

6 Responses to “Shakespeare Writing Assignments”

  1. DeLisa Says:

    I’ll see if I can think of any more to add but mostly, Mr. Shakespeare Teacher, I’m SO EXCITED ABOUT DOING THIS!!!! I’m going to do ALL THREE!!! So FUN!!!!! I’ll get back to you when I’m done (I have no idea when that will be tho) but I LOVE that you’re giving those of us who write ideas for writing exercises!!!

    Who the f**k is better than you? What blog is better than yours?

    Nada, dude.

    :-)

  2. Bill Says:

    Wow! I’m flattered. I wish my students had the same reaction to the writing assignment.

    Actually, I take that back. I think the students who hadn’t missed any classes were jealous of those who had to do the extra credit assignment. They were asking me if they could do the assignment for extra credit anyway. I told them that if any of them wanted to do the assignment, I’d certainly read it.

    And I’ll extend the same offer to you as well.

  3. SA Says:

    Hi Shakespeare teacher. I am student teaching highschool English and would love to try some of your writing assignment ideas. Do you have any exemplares you can share?

    Thanks

  4. Bill Says:

    Indeed! Check out this post and this post.

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  6. Shakespeare Writing Assignments – Shakespeare Geek Says:

    […] got a good post up about some writing assignments that he just handed out.  He’s looking for input on more ideas for such […]

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