Starting Shakespeare
Our first real introduction to Shakespeare's works came when I borrowed a friend's copy of Tales from Shakespeare by Charles & Mary Lamb and gave it to our then 12 year old daughter to read. I had a volume of The Complete Works of Shakespeare, given to me years before by a friend who had a spare copy, and it had sat on the shelf for years after I'd decided that I'd never make any sense out of it. Before long the Complete Works were in my daughter's hands being understood & appreciated & to my surprise, enjoyed. I still hadn't read any Shakespeare and it wasn't until a few years ago that I started connecting with his plays at the prodding of my second daughter who has become quite a Shakespeare buff and with her help I began to enjoy Shakespeare's works for myself. He now has become a regular part of our homeschooling.
Our first real introduction to Shakespeare's works came when I borrowed a friend's copy of Tales from Shakespeare by Charles & Mary Lamb and gave it to our then 12 year old daughter to read. I had a volume of The Complete Works of Shakespeare, given to me years before by a friend who had a spare copy, and it had sat on the shelf for years after I'd decided that I'd never make any sense out of it. Before long the Complete Works were in my daughter's hands being understood & appreciated & to my surprise, enjoyed. I still hadn't read any Shakespeare and it wasn't until a few years ago that I started connecting with his plays at the prodding of my second daughter who has become quite a Shakespeare buff and with her help I began to enjoy Shakespeare's works for myself. He now has become a regular part of our homeschooling.
I've read often enough that Shakespeare was meant to be watched and it did help me to watch some of the movie versions of his plays but my daughter had to give me a running commentary to help me know who was who as I was watching so I've tried to use a mixed approach when we study Shakespeare. I've also found it wise to preview all the movies as even the G rated versions have unsuitable scenes but often it's easy enough to skirt around without missing much of the story.
Here are some of the things we have done.
We read Romeo & Juliet by Margaret Early -this is a re-telling with lovely illustrations.
I had a look at the 1968 movie by Franco Zeffirelli and chose some scenes to give a feel for the story and the time period & we watched those selections. (I didn't think the film was appropriate in places for general viewing but even looking at a few of the scenes was a great introduction to the play & the boys loved the sword fights.)
We read Romeo & Juliet by Margaret Early -this is a re-telling with lovely illustrations.
I had a look at the 1968 movie by Franco Zeffirelli and chose some scenes to give a feel for the story and the time period & we watched those selections. (I didn't think the film was appropriate in places for general viewing but even looking at a few of the scenes was a great introduction to the play & the boys loved the sword fights.)
Our first introduction to Henry V was with the Laurence Olivier movie, followed by reading the re-telling found in Ian Serraillier's The Enchanted Island (see description below). We then listened to the BBC Arkangel fully dramatized version on CD. (We did this over a couple of months covering about 10 minutes at each listening.) After this we watched the very well done 1990 Kenneth Branagh movie which I edited at a few places (battlefield scenes). It was interesting to compare the two movie versions of Henry V. The Branagh version was certainly more appealing to my boys but the Olivier film commences and finishes as a play at The Globe Theatre and so gives a good feel for the Elizabethan era which I found helpful.
My youngest loved the Jim Weiss CD versions of A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Taming of the Shrew and after she had listened to them innumerable times we watched the animated version of The Taming of the Shrew here:
www.squidoo.com/shakespeare-animated-tales (scroll down the page a bit)
Our current Shakespeare play is Much Ado About Nothing. The boys read it in story form in Lambs' Tales and now we are listening to the BBC Arkangel audio plus following along with Cambridge or Oxford guides which have the individual plays with commentary. Reading along with the audio is very helpful even if it's only to know who is speaking when, which can get quite confusing with Shakespeare.
The Enchanted Island by Ian Serraillier is a book of stories from the plays, not of them. He often chooses secondary plot lines to follow which makes for an interesting read that isn't just a repeat of every other book of Shakespeare summaries. Easy to read with engaging language, the eleven stories include Henry V, King Lear, Macbeth and The Tempest.
Our current Shakespeare play is Much Ado About Nothing. The boys read it in story form in Lambs' Tales and now we are listening to the BBC Arkangel audio plus following along with Cambridge or Oxford guides which have the individual plays with commentary. Reading along with the audio is very helpful even if it's only to know who is speaking when, which can get quite confusing with Shakespeare.
The Enchanted Island by Ian Serraillier is a book of stories from the plays, not of them. He often chooses secondary plot lines to follow which makes for an interesting read that isn't just a repeat of every other book of Shakespeare summaries. Easy to read with engaging language, the eleven stories include Henry V, King Lear, Macbeth and The Tempest.
No comments:
Post a Comment