One thing I did that worked really well—
There were a few times that I was surprised by how well a lesson went—often when I felt underprepared or unsure, like I was flyikng by the seat of my pants. I expected groupwork to be a disaster, for example, and had shied away from it all year. Nevertheless, when Macbeth rolled around, I had no choice but to do what I thought would best enable the students to read the play. I put them in groups of five and instructed them to assign roles. This, of course, killed a lot of time, and I began to wonder what I was ever thinking. N Suprisingly enough, however, they got into it. I walked around the room listening to them read more4 confidently in their small groups then they would ever read in front of the class. It felt great to know that they were doing this themselves, that all I had to do was poush them in the right direction and that they would move forward of their own volition. Some kids realolyl enjoy reading drama, too, and they would fight over parts. That’s not a good thing, but it was encouraging to me that they cared enough to even go that far. ?one or two students affected “British” accents, which I thought was great.
They had all been enocouraged to this by the fact that I had had several “guest actors” come in, friends of mine who had experience e with Shakespeare and were able to read the play with me. I would have preferred to have both guests on the same day so that I didn’t have to read, but. Both were very good and the4 students were totally captivated, especially by a flamboyant thesbian friend of mine who plalyed the drunken porter with a wavery cockney and explained each scene before we played it. We also involved the students in the dinner scene where the ghost of Banquo appears; we moved the desks so they were Lords and they had several lines in the scene. They loved it. Definitely doing that again next year.