Product Description
Excellent resource for teaching or directing Shakespeare. Great ideas for different teaching methodologies and plenty of across-the-curriculum activities. You, your colleagues, and your students will enjoy the clever means of incorporating math, science, art, journalism, music, social studies, physical education, and social issues into the study of Shakespeare. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

You Can Teach Shakespeare to Children
Shakespeare To Teach Or Not To Teach: A Teacher's Manual, can be used with elementary to high school students, and is suitable for use in classroom, drama club and homeschool settings. Teachers and parents need not be anxious over teaching Shakespeare anymore.

Shakespeare To Teach Or Not To Teach, can be used in conjunction with any Shakespeare play, but works very well with Shakespeare For Children: The Story of Romeo and Juliet or one of the six productions in the Sixty-Minute Shakespeare series.

Beginning with basic information of Shakespeare, the time period (both his plays and when they were performed), what took place on and backstage in The Globe theater, To Teach Or Not To Teach puts the teacher at ease with the material and builds confidence to present Shakespeare to his or her students.

To Teach Or Not To Teach provides excellent instructional ideas to make the plots and characters come alive for the students. From just reading through play, or acting it out to activities reaching past the typical Language Arts or English class assignments and crossing the core curriculum subjects.

Provides basic tools to introduce children to Shakespeare
Do you work with children to whom you'd love to introduce Shakespeare's work but are uncertain how to go about it? Shakespeare: To Teach or Not to Teach may be the answer to your dreams. According to Foster and Johnson, "These methodologies work with teachers that have had absolutely no experience with Shakespeare. Nearly every teacher we have observed began with a great deal of anxiety and doubt. In most cases both those elements were eliminated after the first session..." The authors provide simple and straightforward guidance for introducing Shakespeare to children as young as second grade all the way through high school. This book is meant to supplement Cass's other quality books, Shakespeare for Children and The Sixty-Minutes Shakespeare series, though they can be applied to any classroom introduction to Shakespeare.

Foster and Johnson clearly have put great thought and care into providing educators with all the tools they need to introduce children to the Bard. Furthermore, the authors provide the information in brief snippets highlighting the most important elements in a way that won't feel overwhelming. Background on the Middle Ages, the English Renaissance, Elizabethian England and theatre, and a biography of William Shakespeare are supplied in 1-2 page, bite-sized pieces. In the core of Shakespeare: To Teach or Not to Teach, the authors provide lesson plans for six days reading the play, including discussion questions, that include plenty of options for finding the best fit for your group. In addition, there are wonderful theatrical warm-up activities and a great variety of Shakespeare-themed activities that draw from all the strands of the curriculum, such as writing, music, art, social studies, and science. For example, there is a writing exercise in which the students pretend they are a newspaper reporter on assignment to interview a person from Shakespeare's time, such as a character from the play, a stagehand at the Old Globe in 1603, or Shakespeare himself. Or for science/health, the authors suggest that teachers can use a discussion of the death scene in "Romeo and Juliet" to segue into a lesson on CPR.

When you're feeling ready to get your production up and running, Shakespeare: To Teach or Not to Teach provides succinct suggestions about casting, rehearsing, scenery, costumes, and even how to promote your production in the local press. Foster and Johnson understand what an endeavor it can be for a teacher to begin a new area of study and especially to commit the time and energy to mounting a production. They counsel, "You are a pioneer and unfortunately all too many of us in education are much too comfortable staying with the same lesson plans, lectures, exams and expectations. Preparing for this unit will take a fair amount of time and commitment but your willingness to explore this realm will reap far-reaching and far-lasting rewards."

When you're contemplating whether to teach or not to teach Shakespeare, feel free to go ahead and teach! This book will guide the way.

Quill says: Shakespeare: To Teach or Not to Teach provides the basic tools for anybody (even you!) to introduce children to Shakespeare's great works.

..."the Five Star Shakespeare Collection an incredible resource"
As our Education Outreach department at Colorado Shakespeare Festival is dedicated to enlightening teachers and students (and the community at large) about Shakespeare's works--using a "hands-on" philosophy--I have found the Five Star Shakespeare Collection an incredible resource. Whenever teachers are looking for a truncated script, or help with "opening up Shakespeare" to their students, I refer them to you...(Five Star Publications - Arizona)

Melinda J. Scott, Education Director
Colorado Shakespeare Festival

A Good Beginner Text
I found this book rather simplistic. I bought it to teach Drama and I think it is probably more appropriate to English. It gave me one or two ideas but the rest of the activities were ones I use already or ones that weren't really appropriate.
I would recommend this book to a beginning teacher of Drama or English.

This book is an amazing introduction to the Bard ...
"The book is an amazing introduction to the Bard, his works andenvironment...a way to overcome literacy and dramatic stage fright that canopen many doors..."

R. Thad Taylor, President Shakespeare Society ofAmerica, Inc. ... Read more

Product Description
Originally developed for deaf children, this innovative and successful drama programme addressing personal, social and emotional needs can benefit all children in primary schools.

The interactive and lively ideas cover a variety of themes from empathy to assertiveness.

Bringing together the expertise of a drama teacher and the skills of a teacher of the deaf, the book provides an unconventional way of exploring human concerns. ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
This highly acclaimed series makes Shakespeare very accessible and is found in all 50 U.S. states, all Canadian provinces, and 45 countries.

The Sixty-Minute Shakespeare series is an ideal alternative for those who lack the time to tackle the unabridged versions of the world's most widely read playwright. Professor Cass Foster has judiciously condensed (without modernizing) the Bard's richly poetic language. He has skillfully retained the integrity of the text, allowing students to experience the thrill of the stories as well as the captivating imagery in the prose and verse.

In addition, the author has provided helpful footnotes on nearly every page explaining the more arcane words and phrases to help the reader better understand and appreciate each play.

You will find the practical suggestions clearly laid out for staging, pacing, and thematic exploration very useful. Scenes flow smoothly from one to the next, maintaining a continuity difficult to find in other condensed versions of the Bard's works. Each script is approximately 70 pages.

The Sixty-Minute Shakespeare series might be for you if...
Your students rely too heavily on classroom discussion in order to understand the plays.
You lack the time to introduce all the plays you would like your students to be familiar with.
You lack the time and resources to stage a fully-mounted Shakespearean production.
You are curious why schools in all U.S. states, all Canadian provinces, and 45 other countries are working with the Sixty-Minute Shakespeare series.
... Read more

Product Description
Pushing past the almost unbearable pain of her past, Lucille Bear decides that change is her only option for survival. Trapped in a lonely swamp she does the inevitable to get out.

Also available on Amazon.com and BethanyScanlon.com! ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (3)

Text for undergrad course
I have used this text in my undergrad course for the last couple of years.It is written in real language with lots of practical suggestions for elementary and middle school teachers.I wish I had had textbooks like this when I was in college!

Enough to stimulate many good lesson plans
I like this book and will use it with a class on arts methods in education.It divides the arts in four main domains:visual arts, theatre/drama, music, and dance, and each chapter is chock full of ways to use these domains in the K-12 classroom.At the end, they feature three lengthy integrated units that center around a single work or theme, kind of like Leonard Bernstein's arts-based curriculum.One of them is a unit on jazz study, which I thought was a great idea.A few of the explanations are tedious, some statements needed a few citations to hold up, and the anticipation guides could be answered correctly by anyone with a brain, but these are small quibbles.Mainly, it's a good book to get teachers thinking about the wide range of arts-based activities they can promote even without special training.

Good if you know nothing about teaching with the arts
This book is set up as a text book, with anticipatory guides, questions and activities for the reader to do. I was expecting a book with too many ideas, but instead this book is for those that aren't familiar with the arts or how to incorporate them into the classroom. There are better books out there, and this is more of a stroking of the authors' worth than anything else. I was very disappointed with this book.
If you have no clues about what art is or how to use it in your lessons, than this book is for you, but if you have any background using art at all, ignore this book. ... Read more