This blog has come about because of a chance comment by one of my students. He said that he wished that there was somewhere he could go for ideas on how to teach Shakespeare to his class. I'm going to attempt one idea each day.

Saturday, 11 June 2011

Holding out for a hero- even a tragic one.

Collect a range of texts and text types which contain information or images of a hero.  Ask students to look at the assorted cues and prompts and to draw on their own understanding of what makes a hero.

Ask them to create a mind map of what makes a hero.

Now ask them to find examples of how the main character of  the play that they are studying fits the criteria that they have identified.  They should provide quotes.

If the play is a tragedy the next phase is to lead them to seeing that a tragic hero has one fatal flaw that leads to his eventual downfall- in the case of Macbeth it's ambition and in the case of Othello, jealousy. 

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