Integrating Film Into the Classroom

In my experience of English classes, I have always been most intrigued by Shakespeare's work. Every year and every class in which I have dealt with his plays, I found myself wondering how the instructor would incorporate lessons that would present Shakespeare in a fun and engaging way. As such, this will be the focus of my assignment.

The Shakespeare plays I enjoy the most are Hamlet and Midsummer Night's Dream so these are the plays I would ideally teach in my class. My lesson strategy involves perpetually increasing the level of involvement as different mediums of experiencing the play are employed. I would start the lessons for each play by having the students read the plays at home over the course of a couple days. Then, during the next few days, we would assign roles to the students and read the play in class, allowing the students to re-read the play with the added intrigue of being able to interact with the other students in the class and develop their own take on the character they are portraying. When this is over, I would set aside a day of class to view a film version of the play. The following class, the students would engage in a discussion about what they liked/disliked about the film version as opposed to their own personal reading of the play. Finally, to close out the stint on each particular play, the students would get together into groups of 6 or 7 and film their own adaptation of a scene from the play previously viewed in class. They would have the freedom to present the play in any way they wished as long as they essentially stick to the script. They would be required to employ editing and film development techniques into their video to create a quality media product. They would each share their videos with the rest of the class, opening the floor to Q/A and comments following the presentation.

While I was in high school, I noticed that with a few exceptions including myself, most students did not enjoy studying Shakespeare. I believe that implementing lessons and assignments that utilize media and stimulate student creativity is an effective way to eliminate this lack of excitement regarding the greatest writer in the history of literature.