I found a wonderful unit plan for William Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew, which I begin teaching one of my British Literature and Composition Classes tomorrow. I adapted it, adding in some ideas from the Folger Shakespeare Library (whose lesson plan section on this play is kind of skimpy) and some ideas from the Penguin-Putnam Teacher’s Guide (pdf) for the play.
You can view my UbD plan uniting these ideas and comprising NCTE and Georgia Standards addressed in the unit plan at the UbD wiki.
I wasn’t too sure about this play at first. It’s been a while since I had taught it, and I was not sure if I really wanted to teach it, and I certainly didn’t want to sit down and plan it. Now I’m really excited about it, and I can’t wait to work with this class. I kept visualizing them completing the activities as I read over the lesson ideas and began incorporating them into the UbD framework.
Teaching Shakespeare can be daunting, but it can be so much fun. Kudos and thanks to everyone who so willingly shares his or her ideas online for the rest of us. What I wouldn’t have given for the large community of English teachers on the Internet now when I was a new teacher! Now I’m off to share this resource with even more teachers who otherwise might not read my blog or see it at the English Companion Ning. If you’re not already there, consider yourself invited.
Photo Credits: North Carolina Shakespeare Festival production of Taming of the Shrew
Photographer: NyghtFalcon
Actor(s):Monica Bell and Dan Murray
Have you seen the BBC "Shakespeare Retold" version of this play? Fantastic!
I'm about to start Othello, so I'm excited to get some ideas. This will be my first time teaching it without using No Fear Shakespeare.
Taming was one of the plays we studied this summer at TSI, so hopefully there will be some lesson plans posted eventually for that.
You might find a few at http://teachingshakespeare.wikispaces.com that have not been posted to the Folger site yet. I just scanned through it, though, and it didn't seem like many people focused on Taming… but a few did.
I didn't know you were a Folgerian, bmoreteach! I was at the Mini-Institute in Decatur. I am actually a member of the wiki you linked.
I wish I had large enough classes to do Taming, because I love this play. Maybe when I teach Brit Lit again in two years… *sigh*. 🙂
Hope it goes well!! I'm going to do The Tempest; Joe has some good ideas on his site for it. I think the imperialism and colonialism aspects will be fun to discuss.