This is our handout for our 10th grade(or appropriate grade level) British Literature class.
Hide and Shake- Finding Shakespeare hidden in pop culture
Due October 1st
Shakespeare is EVERYWHERE. You can hardly watch a sitcom or listen to the radio without experiencing something written by the man, the legend, Willy Shakespeare. In this assignment you are to find Will and coax him from his hiding space. Find a piece of pop culture ( a movie or TV show clip, a song, a painting, a commercial, a book- ANYTHING!) and tell us how it was inspired by Shakespeare.
• You will have over 2 weeks to complete this assignment, so late work will not be accepted!!!!!
• You will have a 5 minute presentation that MUST include a visual, and you must print out a notes page to hand out to your classmates.
Along with your presentation you will turn in a 1 pg. 12 point typed, times New Romans, double spaced paper. This is not an overnight homework assignment. I want some thought to go into this. Tell me WHY this piece of pop culture is important and, most importantly, what it tells us about Shakespeare. This must be in MLA format and must include a works cited page. You absolutely MUST back up the idea that your item is related to Shakespeare with fact. As always, plagiarized work will earn you a big fat ZERO.
You cannot use any primary sources. By this, I mean you cannot actually use the works of William Shakespeare. A 2009 publishing of ‘A midsummer nights dream’ is not pop culture, it’s a new book.
o We have gone over 3 plays in class so far this year (Othello, Romeo and Juliet, and Hamlet) If you can find something on one of these pieces, tell me how it relates to the version of the story YOU remember studying. This is and individual assignment, so no sharing!
• You will be evaluated in 2 ways. You will have a peer review and a teacher review.
You will be graded on both reviews based on creativity, originality, coherence, relevance, grammatical mistakes, format, and content. Your grade will be out of 100.
• Resources that will be helpful-
o Shakespeare in American Life
o A list of Shakespeare blogs that center around popular culture snippets of Shakespeare
Above all HAVE FUN!!! Remember, Shakespeare was a play write, so play around!
We will give this handout to the students and then show them this video clip as an example.
We’ll go over the handout and the assignment and all of our expectations and answer any questions they might have.
Cool video! I always love it when Shakespeare is in modern stuff. Seems like an instant teaching opportunity.
I thought this assignment was really creative. I love the idea of students hunting for Shakespeare in pop culture. Such a great idea, and they could be so creative. I did an assignment kinda like this once, only with Pancho Villa instead – I like doing it with Shakespeare better!
I remember this video! I saw it in Dr. Botelho’s class this summer. Tonya, was this your video for that project we had or did Dr. Botelho show it? I can’t remember!
Anyway, I really love the idea of having students find their own Shakespeare pop culture piece. I enjoyed doing it and seeing the different things the other students found in our summer Shakespeare class! It will be absolutely perfect to do with high school students. Before taking Dr. Botelho’s class – I really had no idea how much Shakespeare can pop up daily… and we just don’t notice. This will make students more aware, and it’s an assignment that won’t be boring to them.
Looks like someone has taken Dr. Botelho! I love the assignment title “Hide and Shake.” It’s true though! Shakespeare is everywhere if you are looking for him. I know I enjoyed this assignment, and I think it will be fun for the students too because they are getting out there and finding Shakespeare references in their everyday lives such as: A Taylor Swift song, “Love Story,” A Simpson’s episode, or street name! Then, when they present to the class, everyone gets to see the ever present bard in action. I like it guys, I like it.
P.S. The video clip is PERFECT!
This is the first time I have seen this commercial. I LOVE Bill S., and really enjoy pop culture references to his works, so I would love doing this assignment. I would also suggest that you show the students some more obscure references to the bard.
This is so fun! I think kids will really appreciate a modernized version of Shakespeare.
I love the video. Great way to intro into Shakespeare. I’m sure the students would love this.
I don’t usually reply to posts but I will in this case, great info…I will add a backlink and bookmark your site. Keep up the good work!