Sharing Shakespeare books & booklets by Catherine Jaime
Well, we did it! It took us three years, but we did it – we finally read every one of Shakespeare’s 38 plays! Quite an accomplishment, considering the teacher (me!) had not even heard of some of these plays before we got ready to read them.
And yes, these 38 include the ones that Shakespeare is only partially given credit for, or occasionally given credit for. When we did Two Noble Kinsmen, for example, we were surprised to find that it wasn’t even in most of our “complete” works of Shakespeare books!
As we made our way through these plays, we laughed, we cried, we puzzled over the magnificent (and some not so magnificent) plays that Shakespeare wrote for us over 400 years ago. We read them aloud together, watched the few (of these more obscure ones) that we could find on video, and overall, enjoyed ourselves.
Some of the lesser known plays surprised us; they were so good. Others, we had no trouble understanding why they were obscure!
The language of Shakespeare is often so beautiful – and the plays so often have such telling tales – evil doings that show the depravity of man; and evil that leads to bad consequences, not good ones!
So join with us on this adventure I’ve called “Sharing Shakespeare”. See what you and your students can gain together from this master of the English language, even after 400 years!
And remember, to be best enjoyed, Shakespeare should be seen – it was not written to be read silently, but to be seen and heard. The second best option is reading it out loud together as a group – so that the different characters can more easily be distinguished, and the beauty of the language can be heard.
Each book contains:
An Introduction to Sharing Shakespeare:
Why Study it/Who Should Study it/Where to Begin
A List of Recommended Books & Videos
Brief History/Timeline of Shakespeare
Family trees for the History Plays
Quotes from Shakespeare Plays
Notes on the included plays:
A Synopsis of the plays, videos we enjoyed or didn’t enjoy, historical notes, etc.
Character-Line Charts for Each play
Review Charts/Play Reports/Performance Reports
Fun to have with Shakespeare
Good news and bad news on the Sharing Shakespeare with Students books!
Bad news: We've decided to discontinue the individual volumes and only carry the complete book (Volumes 1,2, and 3 together).
Good news: While they last, the individual volumes will be discounted 50%! (The prices on the website have been changed to reflect the sale price.) Once these are gone, we don't plan to reprint them. (In fact, by itself, Volume 3 is now gone...)
