10 creative ways to learn about Shakespeare

Analysis: exclusively academic approaches to Shakespeare can be very unrewarding, off-putting and boring so here are some alternative ideas

By Tony Hall, Eílis Flanagan, Cornelia Connolly and Jim Lenaghan, NUI Galway

Reflecting about the contemporary relevance and timelessness of the works of William Shakespeare, comedian, musician and writer, Tim Minchin had this to say. "it doesn't matter if it’s 400 years ago or last week, the stuff that we care about doesn’t change/Shakespeare wrote about what matters to us, in words that once you get inside them feel like music, or monuments, or hugs".

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From Royal Shakespeare Company, Tim Minchin on what Shakespeare means to him

Shakespeare is still (and likely always will be) the cornerstone of the English curriculum, the Zeus of the Syllabus. However, when we first encounter the plays and poetry, his words can seem more like strange noise than music. If they are monuments, they are more like impenetrable sphinxes - and more like snubs than hugs.

Exclusively academic approaches to anything, including Shakespeare and literature, can be very unrewarding, off-putting and boring for young people. Here are some ideas for how to make the teaching of Shakespeare creative and interactive.

(1) All the classroom’s a stage

A brilliant initiative for making learning Shakespeare and English literature fun and engaging is Stand Up for Shakespeare. Essentially, the classroom becomes an ensemble, like the cast of a production - the pupils are the actors and the teacher the director; and maybe even the pupils will direct too. The three key principles of SUFS include: (i) "Do it on Your Feet" – emphasising exploratory and active approaches to Shakespeare, with a focus on performance of the scenes and plays; (ii) "See it Live" – highlighting the crucial importance that students see live theatre, and have opportunities to appreciate live performances of Shakespeare; and (iii) "Start it Earlier": students are introduced to Shakespeare at a young age, and at no later than 11 years of age.

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From RTÉ Archives, a 1990 episode of Jo Maxi asks if Shakespeare is boring

(2) Lights! Cameras! Animation!

The BBC’s Shakespeare: The Animated Tales series is a brilliant way to engage young people, and includes so many of the great plays, including Macbeth, Othello, Twelfth Night and A Midsummer Night's Dream. The plays are presented in a series of condensed animations, which are very useful for teaching as it is easy to get the plot and storyline line of the plays and who the main characters, protagonists and evildoers are. They are also just about 30 minutes in length so really perfect for a class period or two. The series was developed using different genres of animation (including stop-motion, cartoon, etc) so pupils also get to experience the broad creativity involved in animation too.

(3) Animate your own Shakespeare

Why not create your own stop-motion Shakespearean scene? All you need are mala or puppets, a camera and simple video editing software. The basic principle is the camera stays in the same place and you move the mala figure(s), which you will have made earlier. Simply piece the images together in a single video clip using the video editing tool, add the dialogue (or soliloquy) and ready-made sound effects and music that come packaged with video editing software today. If using bespoke software like I Can Animate, you can even green-screen, adding backgrounds to your scenes.

An animated version of Shakespeare's The Tempest

(4) Was Shakespeare a fraud?

A very controversial question in literary circles is who wrote the 39 dramatic works and over 154 poems? Was it in fact Shakespeare or an eminent, now long-forgotten contemporary such as Edward de Vere, The Earl of Oxford? Significant figures in history, including Mark Twain, believed the works could not have been written by The Bard. Whether one believes this or not, it makes for a teachable opportunity and interesting question in the English classroom. A brilliantly made film version of this is Roland Emmerich’s Anonymous which puts forward the Oxfordian Theory that it was indeed de Vere who wrote the eternal works. Also look for other clues, which perhaps suggest subterfuge. For example, is the image on the cover of Shakespeare's First Folio (1623) the portrait of a man’s true face or a masque concealing another’s guise?

(5) Once more unto the breach!

Before doing exercise or playing a match, why not get motivated with a rousing Shakespeare speech? A really great motivational speech is Kenneth Branagh's classic 1989 production of Henry V, and his stirring St. Crispin's Day speech (the inspiration for Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks’ Band of Brothers).

From Henry V, Kenneth Branagh's St Crispin's Day speech

(6) If music be the food of love, play on!

Try to compile a Spotify playlist of all the music inspired by Shakespeare. Compare Elton John and Tim Rice's The Lion King music and storyline with that of Hamlet. Enjoy the beautiful original music inspired by Shakespeare such as Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim's West Side Story (Romeo and Juliet) and Patrick Doyle's score for Non Nobis Domine, brilliantly performed by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

(7) Make excuses for Shakespeare's villains

As a teacher, Frank McCourt famously had his students write excuse notes for famous characters in history and literature. Why not do the same for Iago or Claudius, as they try to justify their malefactions?

(8) The 32 second Shakespeare

Try the 32 second plays developed by the Folger Shakespeare library, where students have to try to read (in character) all the key quotes and lines in a Shakespeare play such as Macbeth. It’s a great activity for fun and collaboration - try it and see can you improve your time! Extra points can be awarded for dramatic delivery and trying out a Scottish accent in Macbeth.

Macbeth in 32 seconds

(9) Shakespeare's life

Research the history of Shakespeare’s life. A brilliant way to start with is a book review of the fantastic biography, James Shapiro's 1599: A Year In the Life of William Shakespeare, which tells the story of this key year in Shakespeare’s career, when he really started to make it as a theatre impresario in London.

(10) Plan a post-pandemic trip to the theatre

The original and best way to experience Shakespeare is to go and see a performance of a play. This was the way we are always supposed to experience the peerless poetry of Shakespeare, whether it's a Druid Theatre production, the Royal Shakespeare Company or a local performance by an amateur dramatic society. The great Shakespearian actor Mark Rylance says all we should need is a dictionary and a copy of the play. You can even go to the cinema now and see live productions and adaptions of Shakespeare.

Dr Tony Hall is a senior lecturer in Educational Technology and a design-based researcher in the School of Education at NUI Galway. Dr Eílis Flanagan is a lecturer in Initial Teacher Education at the School of Education at NUI Galway. Dr Cornelia Connolly is a lecturer at the School of Education at NUI Galway. Jim Lenaghan is Chief Technical Officer at NUI Galway where he manages the technical support for teaching, learning and research at the School of Education.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ