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Becky Parker
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| Posted: July 03 2014 at 4:30am | IP Logged
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We'll be adding both Shakespeare and Plutarch to our morning basket for the coming year. As I work on my plans, I am wondering how one might schedule these. I noticed on the recent Morning Basket post from Jen's blog that she plans on doing one of the "lives" and 2 Shakespeare plays per term. What should that look like on a daily or weekly basis? A small bit each day? Once a week? Whenever the mood hits?
The resources I have for these are Lives From Plutarch, Stories From Shakespeare and Tales From Shakespeare (Lamb).
Regarding the two Shakespeare books, it almost seems as if I could use both for each play. The Chute book explains the plays nicely and the Lamb book actually tells the story. The Chute book could actually be used as an introduction to the Lamb book. What do you think?
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DivineMercy
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This is our first year doing Shakespeare and I plan to use the Chute and Lamb books in just the way you describe. We will be doing this once a week. I only plan to do one play each term. Also, I will be checking out some picture books by Bruce Coville for my younger students instead of having them go through the Lamb book.
Michelle
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SallyT
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I scheduled my year in three 10-week official "terms" -- for Shakespeare, I'm basically doing a new act every other week (all Shakespeare plays have five acts), on Fridays. We have a co-op on alternate Fridays, so five "open" Fridays per term.
This is easy for my high-schooler who will be reading the plays themselves in their entirety -- I can just say, "Hamlet, Act III," or whatever, and he'll read that. I'm still mulling what texts I'm going to use, plus the breakdown, for my middle-schoolers. I'd like to do some dramatic readings . . . maybe that will be a Friday-night pursuit this year, though I foresee a lot of high-school (and maybe middle-school) eye-rolling.
Ambleside Online has a helpful Plutarch study guide, which breaks the readings down into weekly increments over a 12-week term. I condensed these a bit to fit my 10-week terms, but I leaned very heavily on their model.
Sally
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CrunchyMom
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I can't link right now, but I just got How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare by Ken Ludwig, and I really like it. Sarah at Amongst Lovely Things just did a podcast where she interviewed Ludwig about the book, and it is helpful, too. Mine are all ten and under, so I think I will lean heavily on the model and resources outlined in the book as well as the Bruce Coville picture books. We've tried some of the others like Lamb and Nesbit, but the Coville retellings are what my boys have loved most. They will listen politely to Nesbit, but they will beg for me to keep going with Coville! Plus, the illustrations help a lot in their understanding the story. I wish he had them for more plays, and I wish they were still in print!
Oh, and the Ludwig book has passages selected from the plays, so even ifyou don't follow the author's lead in having the children memorize them, he has still done the work in pulling the more significant excerpts from the work to introduce the language. He does a lot of handholding and makes it seem so much more accessible than it felt before!
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Mackfam
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I'm going to get the Ludwig book because it looks really fantastic, and I enjoyed Sarah's review of it.
I was interested to hear about Bruce Coville, Lindsay. I hadn't heard about him. I may see if I can get one of our first plays this term in one of his books and give it a trial run.
Becky wrote:
| Regarding the two Shakespeare books, it almost seems as if I could use both for each play. The Chute book explains the plays nicely and the Lamb book actually tells the story. The Chute book could actually be used as an introduction to the Lamb book. What do you think? |
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It might be overkill if you read Lamb AND Nesbit, Becky. If your kids are upper elementary and older, I'd use Lamb. If you have any littles in there, I like Nesbit.
I DO use Marchette Chute as an introduction before I read the play. We like it because it helps us map the characters and setting before we start reading and gives a good contextual introduction that has always helped us when reading the play. If my littles are glazing over, I zoom and just draw out our character map. If I've REALLY got my act together, I'll read Chute on my own as a preparation for the lesson.
From there, I'm reading Nesbit aloud for Shakespeare in our Morning Basket. Just 2 pages each week. And narrate.
My 8th grader is reading Shakespeare's Richard II this year, he will read slowly through the play, once a week, on his own, and then narrate. All independent. NOT in our Morning Basket.
For Plutarch, I do much the same. We read 2 pages each week and then narrate. There are MANY really worthy children's variations of Plutarch, and I happen to have several of them. I'm using Weston this year. Plutarch was intimidating for me to start with when I finally added him to our schedule a few years ago, but honestly, he's the easiest to narrate!! Plutarch makes for FANTASTIC group narrations! So, if you're easing into both Plutarch and/or revamping a common time like a Morning Basket, I HIGHLY recommend a children's version of Plutarch and group narrations! Really good stuff there with those Greeks and Romans! 
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SallyT
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Yes, I should add that my high-schooler is working independently, but that I'm grouping my will-be 11- and 12-year-olds for both of these. I don't know that I'll follow AO's study guide for Plutarch to the letter, but it does provide a really helpful template.
And I am leaning toward using Colville for my younger set, though I'd also like to do some dramatic reading from the plays themselves, possibly as an evening entertainment, as I said. We've read Nesbit some years, and last year we used Lamb a good bit, but it wasn't a great hit. I think that if we can read Colville during our school day, then do a reading from the same act in whatever play it is (again I'm following AO's schedule for this) in the evening, that will be fun. We do all like Shakespeare quite a lot.
Sally
PS: I forget whether I said it before, but we're doing one play per term. Term 1 is Hamlet. Term 2 is The Taming of the Shrew. Term 3 is Henry V.
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stacykay
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We've been reading Lois Burdett's "Shakespeare for Kid's" series of books, this summer. So far, we have covered Hamlet, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and are now in the middle of Much Ado About Nothing. I've found all of these at our library, and will try to reserve the other two that they have (so nice to have them for free!)
We've read about the Globe Theatre during our Middle Ages study this spring and summer, too.
For this school year, I am planning on reading two actual plays. I thought Burdett's books would be a good intro to the stories, so the boys would be familiar with them. I want to read MacBeth this fall, and am undecided for the second semester read.
I'm interested to hear on which books everyone likes best for the explanatory help with reading the plays. My boys are going to be 5th and 7th grades in the fall. Some of the resources Becky mentions are in the new Rainbow Resource catalogue I got yesterday!, along with a few others. I have my pen and paper, making up my lists.  Such fun!!!
In Christ,
Stacy in MI
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CrunchyMom
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Stacy, the Ken Ludwig book explains the places he pulls from well as well as a breakdown of the passages he pulls from. I read most of it this morning, skimming the actual passages and commentary, and it really is so good!
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knowloveserve
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Here's The thread from last year on the Ludwig book.
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CrunchyMom
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Another resource, perhaps for older students, is the BBC series Playing Shskespeare done by the Royal Shakespeare Company. I subscribe to Acorn TV (a streaming service like netflix or hulu but for British, Australian, and Canadian shows), and they just started offering it. It is from the 70s, and it is fun to see the well known actors from today looking so youthful, but it is a fascinating look into the actor's process as well as how the langusge Shakespeare used intentionally offered direction for how he wanted it said. I was a theater minor and remember watching it in college, and I have not watched the entire series recently, so I cannot say for certain whether there is anything questionsble, but I don't think so.
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SeaStar
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I also just got my copy of the Ludwig book this week  .
I had read through it last fall via the library and was happy to have the paperback option available.
Burce Coville
This is another old thread from last fall discussing his Shakespeare books.
My library had four of them as an audiobook; we enjoyed those as well.
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JuliaT
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We used Ludwig's book last year to help us with Shakespeare. It was a wonderful resource and help. We read Midsummer Night's Dream and Twelfth Night using Ludwig's book as a help for memorizing and background to the play.
My kids are older now (my youngest is 11) so we read the original plays. We used to read them once a week but I found that we weren't getting the plays done that way so now we read them every day as part of Morning Time. We read two plays last year. I was pleased with that because we had quite a few life happenings during that time and school was not consistent.
I think this year we will read As You Like It with Ludwig's help and then move on to Much Ado About Nothing. I have never read these plays so I am looking forward to dipping my toes into them.
We haven't done Plutarch for a few years but when we did do it we used Anne White's guides found at Ambleside Online. The guide divided thechapter into 12 week pieces.
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stacykay
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Ooooh, I just requested Ludwig's book, and they have Coville, too! Hurray! 
In Christ,
Stacy in MI
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I really like the Ludwig book and I find it really helpful. I did not expect to like it and I am always a little wary of "the latest fad". But I think it is excellent. I still remember my Shakespeare soliloquies from many years ago, and had been trying to come up with a good memorization schedule for my children - and the Ludwig book has made it doable. I like the resources on his website too - you can just print out the memorization pieces and listen to great recordings of them.
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MarilynW
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I am still planning Morning Time - and have not decided how many plays. We work on a quarterly system - not termly - so I have to adjust a bit. Our Shakespeare time will be spent between memorization (as per Ludwig) and an actual play - we start off with Nesbit or Lamb and then read through the actual play.
I would love to hear what versions of Plutarch you use. The twins have the Weston version on their Kindle, and I could use this. The last time I used the Mcfarland version from Hillside that Becky linked to - I had older children and I am trying to figure out whether it is too old. My tenth graders are reading the original Plutarch (Roman) for their Roman Year. They are also doing Shakespeare's Roman plays. They will be doing this independently and not as part of Morning Time
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Mackfam
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MarilynW wrote:
| I like the resources on his website too - you can just print out the memorization pieces and listen to great recordings of them. |
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I didn't know he had a website!!!! I was so excited to search and find it - How To Teach Your Children Shakespeare. It might have been mentioned in an earlier thread and I just didn't see it...so I'm glad you mentioned it, M!
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MarilynW
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Mackfam wrote:
MarilynW wrote:
| I like the resources on his website too - you can just print out the memorization pieces and listen to great recordings of them. |
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I didn't know he had a website!!!! I was so excited to search and find it - How To Teach Your Children Shakespeare. It might have been mentioned in an earlier thread and I just didn't see it...so I'm glad you mentioned it, M! |
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I only knew about the website because he refers to it in the book! I really like that I can just print out the passages for memorization binders. And the audio is good. My kids all try to outdo each other with the British accents - it is quite funny!!
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SeaStar
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I had a chance to listen to Ken Ludwig's podcast interview with Sarah at
Amongst Lovely Things this week.
Definitely a great podcast! The author talks about his favorite Shakespeare resources and throws around a lot of helpful titles, which Sarah has linked in the notes. She does a wonderful job asking him all the questions you want to hear the answers to... he also mentions his website there.
I really appreciated the scope of teaching he presented. Memorizing Shakespeare was something he did with his kids over time... years, in fact.
It was not something they whipped through in a couple of terms.
Not that I would try to hurry Shakespeare, but now I know that I don't have to think about trying to get through his book in any set time frame.
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Maggie
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I am very interested in teaching my dc Shakespeare...but they are 7 and 9...I cannot remember Shakespeare that well...but I do remember a lot of murder and sexual innuendos...am I just mis-remembering this? I'm thinking of "MacBeth"--"out d*** spot!"...and "Othello"...and even "Romeo and Juliet" seems a bit intense to me...my favorite was "Merchant of Venice"--but even there, a "pound of flesh" is pretty intense...
Am I missing something? I'm feeling "uncultured" here. 
Are the Coville versions a bit "softer" without being watered down?
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SeaStar
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Maggie-
Ken Ludwig addresses that in the podcast he did. He started with MSND and
some of the gentler comedies and waited until his kids were older for the heavier plays.
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: Shakespeare / Plutarch
