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The syllabus for English 339, Introduction to Shakespeare, structures activities and assignments around reading, viewing and performing. click on thumbnail images for full view and gallery |
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reading
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viewing |
performing |
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The ten week quarter is divided into five two week periods, each focussed on one play. To promote reading on time, the second class of each period begins with a multiple-choice quiz requiring identification of ten speakers of crucial lines, questions per act. [sample quiz in pdf format] Students are encouraged to view one of two performances--usually the BBC full text video--to help them prepare for this quiz. Discussion of quiz questions and answers frames an overview of plot, character, theme and language, informed by a paradigm of critical topics. At the end of each two-week period, students write a one page paper--between 250 and 1000 words depending on fontsize and format--on a topic of their own choice. At the end of the quarter each student submits a clean copy of their favorite paper for inclusion in a class anthology, Shakespeare Boiled Down, distributed at the final exam. |
Analyzing their fellow students' in-class performances and discussing them with the actors illuminates what's new, what works, what doesnt work, and why.
To assure their attendance at each week's out-of-class viewing of two performances, students submit a one-page ungraded comparison/contrast of a single element in both appended to their papers. [Sample comparison reviews of The Winter's Tale --BBC vs. English 510 Players productions] |
Each student participates in one of five in-class scenes performed during the ten-week quarter. At the London Program, English 339 Players perform pub scenes from Henry IV Part I in the George Inn, Southwark, where Shakespeare likely went after shows at the Globe.
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