Making Shakespeare Relevant : 30 Lesson Plans for Teachers

The 30 lesson plans in Making Shakespeare Relevant provide a practical introduction for students to think about contemporary issues in parallel with the character's journey and development in Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth and A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Making Shakespeare relevant is designed to take worry out of Will - and make the themes and issues Shakespeare is exploring relevant to the student's own lives. Each scheme of work in Making Shakespeare Relevant can stand alone and starts with an interactive story telling of one of the three plays (the three stories are included).

Each subsequent lesson plan has a clearly stated objective followed by about 50-55 minutes worth of activities (to be honest, more than you need). And as each lesson plan is displayed on a separate page, it can be easily photocopied by the teacher. After each lesson plan Brian has included notes which might be helpful in the delivery of the lesson.

He has also provided a list of Power Points needed and finally, on a separate page, a Home Thinking/Home Work exercise which might be given out to the students by the teacher. As a Headteacher, who observed Brian's work over three years wrote, 'Having witnessed Brian's lessons I can recommend the work as a novel approach for groups studying Shakespeare as part of a course in English Literature or for teaching Personal and Social Development.

Either way, it will be hard for your students not to be infected with a deeper understanding and love of Shakespeare'Brian has tried to make Making Shakespeare Relevant as user friendly as possible for you overworked teachers...hopefully he has succeeded.