The problem with High School Shakespeare courses is that they often aren't very much fun.
William Shakespeare wrote to ENTERTAIN.
He told brilliantly crafted stories about characters who needn't be bound by time and place, because they are so wonderfully HUMAN.
Too often, we introduce Shakespeare's plays to our teens as complex literature to be dissected, as something difficult to be STUDIED.
But what if we honored The Bard's wishes, and presented his work to teens in a way that could be EXPERIENCED...even ENJOYED?
That's the philosophy behind Sabrina Justison's SHAKESPEARE for One High School Semester course. Sabrina didn't like Shakespeare for decades, because she never understood how to connect to his plays in a meaningful way. When she was asked to teach Shakespeare in her local high school, she decided she would have to connect to his work HERSELF first. And in exploring ways to do just that, she discovered why it's true that Shakespeare is one of the greatest storytellers of all time!
Does that sound like a good approach for your high school student?
Read on!
FOUR FROM SHAKESPEARE is the affordable PDF study guide bundle that accompanies these video lessons.
Just $15.99 for study guides to accompany A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, and King Lear, written in a conversational style of instruction that dovetails beautifully with Mrs. J's lively videos.
Take the course at a Level 3 - College Prep degree of rigor (and breathe a sigh of relief because you don't actually HAVE to read the plays to earn this credit!), or bump it up to a Level 4 - Honors credit by including the clearly-explained enrichment activities, because there's not ONE right way to homeschool high school.
7Sisters has long been known for providing no-busywork curriculum that is mostly high school and mostly FUN. Mrs. J's Shakespeare course is no exception!
This course lasts one-semester (16 lessons) and earns 0.5 credits toward a robust English/Language Arts credit that needs to appear on the transcript for each year of high school.
Give Shakespeare a chance to provide literary analysis adventures and activities that build critical thinking skills in teens!
COMEDY
Shakespeare followed Aristotle's rules for playwrights, written 2,000 years or so before The Bard picked up his quill. Comedies didn't require belly-laughs, but they did follow very consistent rules. The Protagonist must live, the good must be rewarded, and the wicked must be punished.
Tragedies
Aristotle also set the rules for playwrights when it comes to tragedy. Shakespeare followed the rules (for the most part), and the Protagonist did NOT live, the wicked got away with nefarious activity, the good were punished unjustly, and probably lots of other dead bodies littered the stage before the final curtain.
Sonnets
William Shakespeare cornered the market on 14 line poems with emotional punch! His sonnets about beauty, abut love, and about the march of time set the standard for poetry for so many who came after him.
Also for high school students from 7Sisters Homeschool.com
Vicki Tillman's Intro. to Psych from a Christian Perspective is a one-semester course teens LOVE!
