Reading skills are vital to student success, and those skills could be practiced with Shakespeare "if students are taught reading skills in the classroom." The problem is that many teachers of English do not consider themselves reading specialists and do not teach reading skills to their students. Fred L. Hamel notes that teachers in a recent…

Presents students' responses when the author asked whether or not it was worthwhile to study King Lear. Recognizes that she could not sell Shakespeare to her students and that most of them will never read another of his plays. (SG)

Describes in detail a successful unit of study done on the play "Cyrano de Bergerac" that both satisfies particular curricular demands and suits the temperament and interests of young adolescents. (KEH)

This unit seeks to teach Shakespeare's "Hamlet" in a way that the students will have a full understanding of the play. The unit's introduction is designed to get the students acquainted with Shakespeare's language, to motivate them to read the play, and to make them feel confident about approaching the play. Lessons in the unit are fun,…

Argues that canonical plays must be critically engaged rather than "handed down," with students discovering much about themselves and each other through their own engagement. Describes how a high-school acting class examined the dramatic work of Latino/a playwrights for their in-class scene work, and used student experiences to create their own…

Often regarding the "great books" as too difficult for elementary school age children to comprehend, teachers have given students reading assignments that are less than challenging and have risked causing them to dislike reading because it is relatively uninteresting. However, it is possible to expose very young children to works such as…