Charlotte Bourne, Deputy Head of Learning at Shakespeare’s Globe, shares four places to get started with the free online resources developed by the theatre’s education team.

As well as being an iconic cultural venue, Shakespeare’s Globe provides free resources for schools, supporting teachers to create learning opportunities that provide challenge for all. With materials available for teachers and learners across all phases, our education resources are designed to:

·         Offer flexibility within the teaching of Shakespeare through active approaches, rehearsal room techniques or technology – giving opportunities for children to flourish across a range of domains;

·         Add breadth to learners’ understanding of vocabulary through interrogating language choices;

·         Add depth to leaners’ understanding of the relationship between Shakespeare’s texts and their contexts;

·         Use them as a springboard to wider learning opportunities, such as homework projects or longer-term investigations.

Each year we also run a “Playing Shakespeare” microsite which tracks a production as it is developed and performed. This year’s microsite is dedicated to Macbeth (details below).

Ready to go deeper with Shakespeare? Here are four places to get started…

1.      ‘Discover' zone

Great for an introduction to Shakespeare or a focus on context, the Globe website’s ‘Discover’ zone provides a wealth of information on: the history of Shakespeare’s Globe(s); factsheets about Shakespeare's world; blog posts from the Globe; music at the Globe; ‘ask an actor’ podcasts.

Our fact sheets – on Shakespeare, London, writing plays, actors, indoor theatre, special effects, the first Globe, playhouses, audiences, and costumes and cosmetics – are particularly useful for introducing students to Elizabethan and Jacobean contexts in an accessible way at KS2, and can easily be adapted to your lesson objectives. For example:

·         Support the development of critical literacy skills: “We have very few accounts of how the audience behaved, and most of them are about ‘bad’ behaviour. This probably tells us more about what was considered ‘news’ than about how audiences behaved all the time.”

·         Introduce learners to how performance conditions impact on texts: “There were practical reasons why some plays were better suited to indoor theatres. Indoor theatres had a small stage (about half the size of an outdoor theatre’s stage). There were also stools allowed on the stage: the most expensive seats, where rich ‘gallants’ sat to be seen as well as to watch. This gave the actors far less space for big battles or crowd scenes. On the other hand, the smaller space and the candlelight enhanced a play’s magical effects.” This could be followed by an investigation into which of Shakespeare’s plays learners think would suit each type of theatre.

2.      Staging It

An interactive filmmaker for desktops and tablets, Staging It aims to help learners understand Shakespeare’s texts from a director’s perspective and offers the option to virtually stage a scene at the Globe.

Actors are filmed performing a moment of a play on the Globe stage. Each line of their speech is shot four times, each time performed in different ways (happy, flirtatious, defensive, etc.). Students decide which clips to add to the dynamic storyboard to build a final scene. They can then interrogate the choices they made, and the impact of these on how each character is perceived.

These resources support students in recognising that the text is a conscious construct, shaped by the context in which it is received – vital preparation for GCSE English that can be introduced at KS3 through this resource.

Follow-up questions can be used to support the development of critical thinking: How am I looking at this character? What leads me to have this viewpoint? What does my viewpoint ignore? Is there another way to look at them? How might [a different culture/gender etc.] view them? Which of these possible viewpoints makes the most sense given the text? This could be modelled in advance by the teacher, as “revealing the thought processes of an expert learner helps to develop [these types of] metacognitive skills” (EEF, 2018).

3.      Teach Shakespeare

The Globe’s website for teachers, Teach Shakespeare provides hundreds of learning resources in multiple formats: photos, video clips from previous productions, synopses, audio interviews, fact sheets and schemes of work. Designed with input from teachers, the site can be searched by age range, play, format, or purpose (e.g. lesson plan/exam revision). No signup is needed to access the resources.

Many of these resources incorporate rehearsal room techniques. These have experimentation, collaboration and reflection at their heart, and encourage students to make their own discoveries about the text.

For example, this resource suggests the activity ‘walking the line’ to investigate Shakespeare’s use of metre: foot up on unstressed syllables and down on stressed syllables, noticing and commenting on irregularities in the ‘Gallop apace’ speech in Act 3 Scene 2 of ‘Romeo and Juliet’. The ‘commenting’ is particularly important, because it is the collaborate nature of reflection that helps further the metacognitive talk referenced above. We provide video clips showing the actors undertaking some of these techniques, to model the insights that come through actively exploring the text in this way.

4. Playing Shakespeare

This site provides a gateway to all our previous production-specific websites created as part of the Playing Shakespeare project, each of which tracks a production from rehearsal to final performance. This year’s microsite is dedicated to Macbeth, with previous productions covered including Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Othello, The Merchant of Venice, The Taming of the Shrew. Each of these sites contains photos, interviews with the cast and director, design briefs, articles and teaching activities.

The interviews with cast members give students the opportunity to unpick the texts in performance – a key aspect in appreciating the form. Listen to several Macbeths discussing their interpretations, for example, can help students understand that, unlike a novel, a drama text is incomplete on the page.

There are research articles on particular plays, written for a KS3-4 audience moving to focus in more detail on the relationship between text and context. These provide a rich exploration of writer's craft that cannot be separated from context, and can be used to model the integrated approach to this required for higher-level literary analysis.

Our Macbeth 2020 website has launched and will begin tracking the production in January!

1. Language: director's edit

Our “script machines” display the script of five key scenes from the play, but with a twist: you have the option of showing the director's edit. This enables you to unpick AO2 more organically with learners, because the interplay between language (Shakespeare's text) and form (a script to be edited for the stage) becomes apparent. For example:

Juliet: O, sweet my mother, cast me not away!
Delay this marriage for a month, a week;
Or, if you do not, make the bridal bed
In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.

• What do the cut lines convey in terms of meaning?
• What does removing them achieve?
  
• What meaning is the director drawing our attention towards, or away from, through this edit?
  

This serves as a reminder that, in any performance text, there is more than one conscious construct at work. Although learners will need to know the whole text, the “meanings and effects” (AO2) has a greater plurality when considered in this light.

Indeed, this can also lead to discussions around the context: the origins of Shakespeare's writing, shaped by the theatre practices of his day, mean that even modern editions of the same, full play-text may differ. What an audience receives, therefore, is already layered with interpretation.

2. Language: literary terms

This part of the resource gives learners the opportunity to identify where certain literary techniques are being used by Shakespeare, across five key scenes. This can be used as a revision tool, but why not use it to model the thought processes in understanding how these techniques work to create meanings and effects? This moves learners away from the fallacy of technique-spotting, and can be adapted for KS3 and KS4.

With this in mind, several techniques in each scene are broken down into a series of questions, on our Teachers’ Notes page. For example:

• Tybalt describes the servants as “heartless hinds”. How does this metaphor show that Tybalt has a low opinion of the servants? Use the questions below to support your thinking.
  
• What possible meanings does the word “hind” have?
  
• How about the word “heartless”? Hint: remember that Shakespeare’s audience would have heard the play; “heartless” could also therefore be heard as “hart-less”. How could this link to “hind”?
  
• Consider the effect of the alliteration in making this link.
  
• How does this contribute to the servants’ definition of masculinity set up in the opening exchange between Sampson and Gregory?
  

To extend the challenge, learners could then create their own questions to deconstruct other techniques. Creating these questions demands higher-order thinking, as learners need to be at Bloom's level of “analysis” before attempting this. To scaffold them up to this level of challenge, they could look at how the same technique is deconstructed in a different scene. This has the added benefit of highlighting the nuanced effects of the same technique used in different parts of the text.

3. Research articles: Brooke versus Shakespeare

Brooke's 1562 poem, “The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet”, served as a key source for Shakespeare. So far, so bolt-on AO3. However, this resource allows learners to compare the differences between Shakespeare's prologue and Brooke's “argument”. It highlights how Shakespeare’s drama occurs over just five days, whereas Brooke’s poem unfolds over nine months, and that Juliet’s age is lowered from 16 to 13.

Drawing out these differences allows for rich exploration of writer's craft that cannot be separated from context, required for the top bands at GCSE.

• Have learners compare the time reference in Brooke's “argument” with Shakespeare's prologue, and discuss what effect this might have.
  
• Next, ask learners to find all the references to time within Shakespeare's version; what patterns do they spot? Why is it that time seems to pass so quickly in the play? Consider this also in light of Shakespeare's younger Juliet.
  
• What meaning is being created through these marked changes to the original source material? If time is compacted and Juliet is younger, what might this suggest about the speed of young love?
  
• How does the adaptation of form – from poem to play – affect how it is received?
  

4. Character interviews

Providing learners with the opportunity to engage with text in performance is a cornerstone of the work we do, and part of this involves providing access to actors taking part in the production.

Although learners wouldn't need to analyse actors' interpretations in their exam, the character interviews provide a window into hearing how someone else arrived at an informed, personal response (AO1). Questions cover: What are your initial impressions of your character(s)? What have you noticed about your character’s language, i.e. the way they speak to others/about themselves?

Characters are interviewed several times across the production, providing learners with opportunities to reflect on the complex nature of interpretation: how this can be revised with each more detailed exploration of the text.

To access these resources, plus a wealth of additional resources to support a challenging curriculum, visit 2019.playingshakespeare.org. Remember: the website tracks the production so please keep coming back to see what else we have added!

Charlotte Bourne is Deputy Head of Learning at Shakespeare’s Globe, with a focus on learners aged 3-18, plus the educators who support them. The Globe’s on-site Lively Action programme welcomes close to 80,000 learners per year, while its international outreach work sends practitioners to China, the US and Europe. A qualified English teacher and AQA examiner for GCSE Literature, Charlotte has worked closely with ITTs and NQTs across multiple subjects.

Ahead of her workshop “Challenging more able learners in English (KS3-4)”, NACE Associate Tracy Goodyear shares three steps to review and improve the quality of challenge provided in your KS3 English lessons…
 
Shortly before the half term break, I asked a number of Year 13 students if they could remember the moment that solidified their decision to study English at A-level. The responses were interesting: some of them said it was a particular teacher whose passion for their subject had inspired a love of literature; some said it was one particular lesson that had given them that all-important lightbulb moment.
 
One student recollected an individual lesson that she recalled quite vividly: “It was Year 9 Shakespeare, Miss – we were debating who decides literary value.”
 
This was the response that interested me most. I asked what she valued about that experience and she said that it felt like she had really been forced to think for herself – that she felt unsure at first, but soon found the confidence and the words to argue her point of view on a topic she hadn’t really given much thought to in the past.
 
This conversation was another reminder for me about the importance of the Key Stage 3 diet. It reminded me that KS3 is indeed what some on EduTwitter are dubbing “The Wonder Years” and that key decisions and attitudes towards subjects are decided during this crucial time. It is, therefore, pivotal that the KS3 curriculum is a balanced one – providing a rich and diverse set of experiences that nurture a love for learning and a love for literature.
 
Here are three strategies to step up the challenge in KS3 English:

1. Start by defining the “end product”  

Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool have both conducted extensive research on what defines success and what makes the world’s most successful people achieve extraordinary things. In their book Peak[1] the authors discuss the “virtuous circle” in which “honing the skill improves mental representation, and mental representation helps hone the skill”.
 
This got me thinking about the mental representations teachers have of learners. Are we always clear about where we want our students to “be” at certain times in their school career, beyond reaching centrally determined target grades? Do we always hold a clear vision of what “success” looks like for an individual learner/group of learners?
 
Over the past year, my department has spent quite a lot of time defining a vision for our KS3 “end product”. We met as a team to list attributes we wanted for our learners by the end of the key stage – an opportunity to vent about things they “couldn’t do” and skills they appeared to lack when it came to the start of GCSE. This discussion was about much more than examination criteria or working towards assessment objectives; our ideas about “progress” needed to delve much deeper. We wanted to be clear on the attributes we wanted learners to craft and hone, and we used this information to identify learning opportunities we would habitually offer to ensure success.
 
After some discussion, we decided that our aim for KS3 is to cultivate students who:

• Have a critical eye, so they do not blindly accept things;
• Openly welcome feedback, criticism and differing views and interpretations and do not feel threatened by these;
• Are skilled in planning, showing evidence of deep thinking;
• Will take risks, knowing that the learning they will experience is more valuable than the fear of failure;
• Actively listen to and reason with the ideas and expertise of others;
• Construct meaningful arguments, supporting their ideas with confidence and conviction.

This activity gave us clarity in terms of what we wanted to achieve at KS3 and we were able to action these recommendations when designing a new programme of study. This was well-spent development time – I thoroughly recommend taking the time to define the characteristics you value in your own department, for both your teachers and your learners.

2. Encourage oracy and debate 

I have always been an advocate for the “if you can say it, you can write it” mantra, but in English this is crucial. It’s important to create an environment where talk is both celebrated and expected – and there are several ways to encourage this in lessons and schemes of learning. Some of the best thinking that happens in English occurs when learners have had the opportunity to work with an idea, noticing its flaws/pitfalls and appreciating its various facets. Only then will they be able to show a profound depth of understanding.
 
Here are some ways in which oracy can be promoted in the KS3 English classroom:

• Make thinking visible in your lessons[2] (in the words of Dylan Wiliam, play “basketball”, not “ping pong”[3]). There’s real power in passing an idea around the room; this avoids learners needing to seek your approval of an answer and models thinking “live” in the lesson.
• Model high-level talk: explicitly teach vocabulary and make its various contexts clear. This can be achieved through “word of the week” displays or simply taking some time to discuss vocabulary choices in certain texts.
• Don’t accept mediocre verbal responses – keep expectations high. Give learners time to formulate a strong verbal response. This may include a “think, pair, share” visible thinking routine, or developing purposeful “think time” after a question has been posed.

3. Engage with academic research

One of the most exciting challenges in teaching more able learners is knowing that you have to be several steps ahead in terms of your own knowledge and understanding – I have always enjoyed the intellectual thrill of this. As well as staying up to speed yourself, engaging with research and academic publications is also a great way to show learners the wider relevance of the programme of study and ensure that it also models high-level thinking and reasoning.

• Find academic works/essays that provide alternative views of your topic and work with these as extracts. These could then be useful sources for further investigation and debate. Students will go on to approach their set texts through a different lens. (Recently I experimented with an essay on madness and insanity in Victorian England, and we used this to help gather information for a debate on Dickens’ presentation of Miss Havisham.)
• Make time in department meetings to discuss new learning. Could members of the department take the lead on a certain aspect and be tasked to share updates at team meetings? An expert on 19th century literature perhaps? Or Shakespearean tragedies?
• Encourage learners to engage independently with available materials. For example, there are some excellent resources on The British Library website with scans of original sources, which are invaluable. Last year we introduced an extension activity called “Universally Challenged”, where learners were tasked to research a related topic and to produce a small resource/elevator pitch for others in the group. The activity aims to broaden students’ literary understanding and strengthen their ability to make pertinent links between what they are studying and the contexts within which other texts were produced.

Stefan Pearson, Teacher and Challenge Coordinator at Bradford’s Copthorne Primary School, shares five key takeaways from this year’s English for the More Able conference…

 Last month I attended the English for the More Able conference in York, run by NACE in partnership with Rising Stars. The conference explored a range of approaches to support, engage and challenge more able learners in primary English, with an opening keynote from author Anne Fine, interactive workshops, and opportunities to share ideas with fellow primary teachers, coordinators and school leaders.

Like most delegates, I left the event with a pile of notes and a head buzzing with ideas – some of which I’ve already begun to test out in my own classroom. Here are five of my main takeaways from the day – offering fresh perspectives to keep primary English relevant and engaging for learners of all abilities.

1. Oracy skills can – and should – be taught in schools.

Among the keynote speakers for the day was Neil Mercer, Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of Cambridge and Director of Oracy Cambridge. Professor Mercer’s talk reinforced my belief that oracy skills are an essential foundation in learning and life, which can – and should – be taught in schools.

To communicate successfully, young people need to develop language and skills to reason and reflect, express ideas clearly and confidently, listen carefully, and talk and work well in a group. Most children’s home experiences will not provide opportunities for them to develop all the oracy skills they need, making it even more important that oracy is taught in schools.

The aim, Professor Mercer believes, should be to engage children in “exploratory talk” – characterised by active listening, asking questions, sharing relevant information, challenging ideas and giving reasons for doing so, and building on what has already been discussed. In exploratory talk, all participants are encouraged to contribute, ideas and opinions are treated with respect, and the group works within an atmosphere of trust and with a shared purpose, seeking agreement and joint decisions.

2. We need to talk about listening…

3. … and provide effective Talking Points.

Dr Lyn Dawes, also a member of Oracy Cambridge, shared her work on Talking Points – thought-provoking statements that encourage children to talk about a topic, promoting discussion, comparison, analysis, reasoning and negotiation. Through participation in Talking Points discussions, learners explore a curriculum topic in depth, generating shared understanding and establishing areas for further investigation. Most importantly, they develop skills for effective group discussion, practising sharing their opinions and giving reasons, listening and responding to others, and collaborating to ensure everyone has a chance to contribute.

Talking Points can be used across any curriculum area and can be created by both teachers and learners – a fantastic resource to support effective learning and develop oracy skills, which can then form the basis of written work.

4. Grammar really can be fun!

NACE associate Christine Chen ran a workshop on grammar games, sharing lots of practical ideas. One of these involved writing a six-word sentence and numbering the words 1-6. Learners are then asked to roll a dice, identify the word class of the corresponding word, and replace the word so the meaning of the sentence alters.

I’ve already tried this with my class and the children really enjoyed it. This kind of game also builds in differentiation, providing scope for challenge while reinforcing learners’ understanding of the different parts of language.

Another idea from this session which I’ve also tried out is the challenge of writing descriptively without using adjectives – meaning other word types must be carefully selected to convey mood, pace, emotion and so on. This prompted my more able writers to rethink their approach to description, and they really relished the challenge.

5. Engaging parents can be as simple as this.

My fifth and final key takeaway from the conference is in fact a resource developed by my own school. During her plenary talk, headteacher Christabel Shepherd mentioned our reading mats for parents. These proved in-demand amongst conference delegates, with many schools recognising the importance of engaging parents in developing children’s reading and comprehension skills.

We give the reading mats to parents and carers as laminated resources to use at home. They provide explanations and examples of different question types – for example, questions to retrieve information, to comment on language choices, or to relate texts to wider contexts. The sheets include question frames, which can be adapted for any book.

At Copthorne, where 98% of our learners are EAL and many families speak little English at home, we’ve found these reading mats very effective in supporting parents. In addition to encouraging shared reading at home, the mats enable parents to make effective use of questioning to develop their children’s understanding.

How does your school support more able learners in primary English? Contact us to share your approach.

NACE associates Christine Chen and Lindsay Pickton are experienced primary English advisors, with a specialisation in supporting more able learners. In this blog post, they explain how grammar games can help to foster creativity, engagement with the composition process, and a lasting love of language.
 
If you’re not already using grammar games in your classroom, here are five reasons to start now…

1. They set a high bar for all learners

The great thing about grammar games is that they enable a “low threshold, high ceiling” approach to learning, enabling all learners to experience the possibilities of language manipulation. While some games offer potential forms of differentiation, the key – as with any learning – is having high expectations of all.

2. They’re fun!

There’s a common misconception that grammar is intrinsically boring and dry. Grammar games help to break this down, providing opportunities for teachers and learners alike to have fun with grammar, through activities including dice games, physical manipulation of sentence structures and simple drama strategies.

3. They put grammar in context

Grammar teaching and learning is commonly approached through isolated exercises, which may help some children with test preparation, but do little to support composition. Grammar games can be used to explore grammar in the wider context of language usage, making it more likely that learners will apply new learning and continue to experiment.

4. They encourage risk-taking

Collaborative grammar play transforms what could be a purely internal process into an enjoyable shared learning experience. When children experiment with application in writing following these collaborative games, they are more likely to take risks and to feel in control, in a joyful way.

5. They nurture a love of language

Playing with language fosters a love of it. This is important for all learners, including more able writers and communicators. Even if they don’t know the terminology, these learners are able to adapt sentence structures and vocabulary choices to achieve a desired impact on their readership. Grammar games further encourage them to take pleasure in exploring and developing their skills as young writers.

One to try: “Every word counts”

This is a dice game for manipulating meaning and exploring nuance through vocabulary choices. It’s one of the most popular and adaptable games we’ve invented; as children play, they experience tangibly the descriptive power of every word in a sentence. 
 
Create a six-word sentence, in which no word class is repeated, and list the word classes in order.

e.g. They played in their tiny garden.

1. Pronoun
2. Verb
3. Preposition
4. Determiner
5. Adjective
6. Noun

Throw a dice. With each throw, children must change the corresponding word in the sentence, and discuss (as a group or whole class) what has changed about the scene or story.
 
e.g. Throw a 4 – change the determiner:

• They played in their tiny garden.
• They played in her tiny garden.
• They played in the tiny garden.
• They played in this tiny garden.

 Learners discuss how changes made affect the meaning. With each change, how does the word choice affect the story?