How to Teach Hamlet, Part II: Setting Up the Text
Preparation: Reading and Annotation
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Reading and Annotation
Initially, students should be instructed to read the first act of the play. Assume about one act per week if you need a rough timeline. Give students a verbal preview (or prepare a PowerPoint) of the opening scenes of the play. Instruct students to read and annotate Act I over a weekend. If students are regular-level, it's generally better to break this up into a smaller chunk and assign them to read and annotate Act I all the way to the end of scene 4, and then assign them to read the rest of the act after you've checked annotation. Encourage the students to use the annotation symbols and approaches below:
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Procedure
Step One: Find Your Focus
You will not have time to discuss every single idea or line in this play. Instead, you will need to find a focus issue or topic that you will come back to again and again, and will spend special attention on in analysis and discussion of specific scenes. For example, if I were going to teach Othello, one issue I would definitely explore is the issue of sociopathy, so that means I'm definitely analyzing every single one of Iago's soliloquies, but especially the ones early in the play in which he's establishing his character. I'd also be interested in the issue of gender, so I'd definitely focus on the "suckle fools and chronicle small beer" contest between Iago and Desdemona, as well as Emilia's bitter words about "...they belch us" late in the play.
For Hamlet, the following issues are rich in possibilities. Pick at least two below.
Major thanks to the Hamlet Navigator site for the amazingly useful links.
You will not have time to discuss every single idea or line in this play. Instead, you will need to find a focus issue or topic that you will come back to again and again, and will spend special attention on in analysis and discussion of specific scenes. For example, if I were going to teach Othello, one issue I would definitely explore is the issue of sociopathy, so that means I'm definitely analyzing every single one of Iago's soliloquies, but especially the ones early in the play in which he's establishing his character. I'd also be interested in the issue of gender, so I'd definitely focus on the "suckle fools and chronicle small beer" contest between Iago and Desdemona, as well as Emilia's bitter words about "...they belch us" late in the play.
For Hamlet, the following issues are rich in possibilities. Pick at least two below.
Major thanks to the Hamlet Navigator site for the amazingly useful links.
Theme: Acting and Illusion
Act I.i
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Acting and Illusion
The very first words of this play -- "Who's there?" -- are a demand to know someone else's identity. In this highly charged atmosphere of ghosts, spirits, deception, plays, acting, plays-within-plays, and insanity, it's a question that requires more than an I.D. card to answer. If we pretend -- as Hamlet does throughout this play -- to be someone else, then where does our true self exist? Does a mask that we put on long enough eventually become our true face? Hamlet counsels Gertrude to "assume a virtue if [she has] it not," with the goal that her assumed or pretended virtue will eventually graft itself onto her real nature. What, though, is that "real" nature? |
Theme: Gender
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Gender
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Act I.ii
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It should not escape anyone's notice that at the end of this play about a son taking revenge on a man who's usurped his brother's place that all of the women are dead. (To be fair, the men are too.) From the first, though, Hamlet is profoundly a play about perceptions of gender. Hamlet holds up women as avatars of deception, castigating them for taking the face God has given them and "mak[ing] [them]selves another," fundamentally accusing all women of being whores. The irony is, of course, that this accusation is coming from a character who is literally feigning to be something he is not. How does the play shape our understanding of gender as a public performance?
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Theme: Fathers and Sons
Act I.ii
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Fathers and Sons
The question of fatherhood is one that haunts this play -- literally. Throughout the play, Hamlet confronts the psychological and actual (?) specter of his father at key points, and it's safe to say the appearance of Hamlet's father's ghost galvanizes the action. Though he makes immediate promises to take immediate revenge, Hamlet actually hesitates substantially throughout the play before killing Claudius. Why? Is it careful, rational decision-making, or is there a deeper Oedipal conflict here, as Ernest Jones famously argued? Is Hamlet splitting off his conception of "good father/bad father" and using Claudius as the scapegoat for his own failure to be a good son? Is Claudius' Hamlet's real father? Does the contrast between Hamlet/Claudius or Hamlet/Hamlet Senior and Laertes' relationship with his father Polonius shed light on this issue? |
Theme: Acting and Theater
Act II. i
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Acting and Theater
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Step Three: The General Game Plan
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3 Levels of Reading
Reading #1: Read At Home This step is crucial unless you want to spend a lot of time in silent reading, which is not the most useful or productive way to spend students' precious class time. Assign students a portion of the text to read and annotate using annotation symbols and fully-developed responses such as those found here. Reading #2: "You Are Here" The second reading takes a pass through a particular section of the reading you assigned the night before. The purpose of this reading is to familiarize student with the basic events of the play -- the characters, plots, motifs, famous words, ideas, and other issues that are dealt with in the reading you assigned and for which they did annotations. For example, if you assigned students to read Macbeth through I.iv at home, then Reading #2 might begin by asking students to reread the portion of the text in which Macbeth and Banquo first meet the witches in I.iii. You could say, "Okay, we're going to read just this part aloud, and when we do, be on the lookout for the following questions."
TELL the students to look for those issues. Then read just that one section, pointing out anything of note, such as the fact taht Macbeth's first words echo the last words of the Witches and speculating (but not necessarily answering) why this is the case. Then, in small groups or pairs, tell them to answer the questions and then discuss them. Reading #3: The Big Issues The big issues of the play will focus on any of those major focuses you decided to make your special interest during this play -- fate, gender, power, ambition, or all of the above. Notice tha5t in the set of "You Are Here" questions, you were asking the students to mark down anything they saw in I.iii that had to do with gender and power. Here's where the groundwork of Reading #1 and #2 will come into play. It's not until they've done #1 and #2 that they're really ready to tackle #3. ___________________________________________ Example Let's say that you've chosen to discuss gender and power in Macbeth. You've assigned your students to read Act I and annotate it, which they have, and now you're ready to launch into a discussion of two pivotal scenes having to do with gender and power relations:
YOU YOURSELF will have to read through the scene first, ideally a week or so before, and focus on the issues of gender and power that the scene raises. Let's say you've done that and you're now very familiar with the strategizing and maneuvering that these scenes involve. You would then assign your kids a SPECIFIC focus for annotation in the scenes. Specific Annotation Let's take I.v of Macbeth as an example. One assignment for annotation could be as follows:
Discussion Have students discuss in a method I call "the expanding circle" -- first in a small group or pair, then as a whole class. Time them with a timer. Say, "Okay, now that you've annotated, turn to your partner and share. What annotations did you have in common? What did you mark that they didn't? What did they mark that you didn't? Then, after about five minutes, have them share with the class. Go through the passage annotations and ask, "Where did you first see Lady Macbeth using a power play on Macbeth? What would you call or label that power play? Does it work? Why does it work/not work?" Have students participate by calling on them. If students don't participate or don't know, give them 1-2 minutes to discuss the question with a partner and then come back to you. |
Assessment
Formative Assessment Examples
Summative Assessment Examples
Formative Assessment Examples
- Quick stand-up-and-review quiz in which you ask the students basic factual (DOK-level 1) questions such as When did Shakespeare live? What was the primary poetic meter in which this play was written? Where is it set? What prophecy do the witches give Macbeth? How is Duncan killed? Although these are DOK 1 questions, they help remind students of fundamental facts and primary events, and can be a good warmup and review.
- Exit Tickets: Any of the discussion questions that aren't resolved in class can be used as exit tickets for formative assessment.
- Know/Don't Know: Have students write down one idea that they DO know or understand, and one idea or concept that they DO NOT understand or want to know more about. Again, this can be an exit ticket or a beginning exercise.
- Annotation and/or Dialectical Journals
Summative Assessment Examples
- Almost any of the Seminar/Essay questions below would work well as a focused question for a literary analysis paper or argumentative paper.