This qualitative Action Research study explores a group of lower secondary pupils' use of social semiotic resources and traditional and digital tools to develop an understanding of "Romeo and Juliet" at a private trilingual school in Barcelona. Forming part of a wider study undertaken by an English language and literature teacher, it…

In this paper, we report data from the first national survey of secondary Shakespeare teaching in the UK, conducted online in 2017-18 with a sample of 211 teachers distributed throughout Wales, England, Northern Ireland, and Scotland. In this article, we outline the pedagogical practices which are dominant. Specifically, we examine the group of…

Teacher-researcher, Katherine Macro spent six weeks observing an eleventh-grade Advanced Placement and Composition class at Sunnybrooke Central High School to examine the teacher's use of creative drama to teach Shakespeare. In this article, Macro describes ways the instructor used theater-based instructional strategies, especially a staged…

For the last several years, teacher-researchers Jessica Jasper, Laura Dvorak, Steven Athanases, and Sergio Sanchez have partnered with a program called Globe Education, Shakespeare's Globe London. Practitioners in the program use teaching practices that engage learners with Shakespeare's works and other complex texts through drama practices. Jess…

In this paper, I reflect on a series of lectures, underpinned by the principles of critical pedagogy, when engaging with Shakespeare's "The Tempest." Working with student teachers in a South African School of Education, I used a talk-back design to enable students to talk back to the canon and open the dialogue about resistance. I used…

Our paper seeks to investigate how mediation using emerging technologies can increase student engagement within the context of teaching English Literature in Singapore. Through a discussion of our ongoing project to create an adaptation of Shakespeare's "Pericles, Prince of Tyre" as an animated game in virtual reality, we focus upon the…

Most students meet Shakespeare in middle or high school, on a page in a book in an English classroom. This first encounter is a disservice to the students themselves and to Shakespeare: Shakespeare's plays are works of both literature and theatre, and should be taught as such. A performance-based teaching approach not only provides high school…

Active learning challenges students to learn through experience and reflection on what they have done (Frost, Levitt, and Kosslyn 2017). As this pedagogy has developed, the principles have been useful in teaching a variety of subjects. This paper discusses research from many disciplines and observations from sixteen years of working with secondary…

In this paper, we report data from the first national survey of secondary Shakespeare teaching in the UK, conducted online in 2017-18 with a sample of 211 teachers distributed through England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. We report on what is taught and why. Our survey shows that the most popular play in the UK is "Macbeth,"…

This article presents the work of two female students in a rural school who were assigned to respond to a Shakespearean text with a Digital Video (DV) project. The study shows how the teacher provided students appropriate time, mediation, and space in allowing them to bring their out-of-school literacies and interests within an academic context.…

This interview and response explores the functionalities of the digital platforms Digital Theatre+ (DT+), Drama Online and Cambridge University Press as represented by the interviewees, with a focus on Robert Delamere's DT+. Delamere discusses the history of DT+, and his vision for it to become a site where students can create 'remixes' of DT+…

In this essay, I draw on the experience of reading "Hamlet" with a class of 11- and 12-Year-old boys in a London comprehensive school. I explore how a number of comments in my classroom reveal the complexities of my students' thinking about gender and sexuality in "Hamlet." I look at how these thoughts are difficult for the…

This article provides guidelines for student investigation that address teaching and learning objectives for both the social studies and language arts. Building on historical inquiry methods, the authors advocate for Discipline-Based Art Education (DBAE) as a vehicle for this learning. Because the curricula in secondary English/language arts and…

In this article, I outline and theorize about a series of three lessons on playwriting I conducted in a secondary English Literature classroom in Singapore using drama improvisation strategies that I name drama-based playwriting, or DBP. I advance the argument that this genre of creative writing is best taught through the medium of drama so as to…

Drawing upon my own experiences as a high school English Language Arts teacher, I seek a satisfying response to offer students when they ask, "Why are we reading this?" Such a query often leads teachers and students to consider broader questions of the purposes of literature. This paper presents a hermeneutic exploration of the practice…