Reading

Reading Tools

The tools below can be used to help get your students engage as active readers of a text they may find challenging. Although these methods are definitely useful for Shakespeare, I find myself inspired to test them out on other texts as well!

Reading Activities:

Paper Tapping

• Have students read a dialogue with a partner

• Have students pick a word or two from each line and underline/highlight that word

• When the reread with their partner, they should be hitting or flicking the paper to emphasize the selected words while also hitting them with an emphasis on their voice

• Have students perform the dialogue with no hitting, just emphasis.

Prologue Work

• Prologue of R & J: reading it as a group, then facing a partner and saying it really fast, ,then looking at a highlighted version and really stress the highlighted words.

• Then doodle while listening to the prologue, what came up share

• Then take two lines and translate those lines into modern language, use a dictionary if needed. 

• Create a tableau and say both the Shakespearean version and the modern version.

Walking the beat

• Understanding Iambic Pentameter, have students count 5 steps, then have them change their gate to understand the dynamics of sound

  • skipping to stress beats on the land and lift

  • slide defining the elements below:

    • meter- a measurement: step/foot, raise and lower each foot to move forward

    • pent- five: take five steps

    • dont stomp: one two three four five

    • lift the foot: step high and light- ah-one ah-two ah-three ah-four ah-five

Rhyme tapping

• tap your own chest to indicate your character rhyming with themselves, high five your partner to indicate that you rhymed with them

  • R&J partner reading

Creating Units

• where are the shifts in tone or intention?

• students can stamp a foot or bang a fist to indicate that they have sensed a shift

• Students can work together (as a class or in groups) to identify these units and then name them. They are naming units in the context of the act, not the entire play.

Acting Animals

• can you embody the characteristics of an animal

  • weasel, lion, snake, frog, scorpion, etc.

• Changes the way students read and carry themselves

  • Example: Can you read that Macbeth line as a lion?

Did You Just Say?

• Students will read a line and their partner responds by picking a line or two and saying "did you just say..."

• Partner responds "Yes, line."

Parrot

• Students will read a line

• Their partner will respond by staring their line with a word from the line prior

  • "Do you bite your thumb at me, sir?"

  • "At you sir? No sir."

Audience Acknowledgement

• Reading the lines and inserting a different person's name in each line

  • helps with audience engagement and acknowledgement, leaning into Shakespeare's goal and The Globe's method

Off Beat Reading

• Reading while establishing a beat against their chests

  • Can you identify where the beat is off? Mark down the word that doesn't fit.

Physical Punctuation

• Each punctuation mark should have it's own reaction

  • when you see a (.): stop, turn on the spot, continue

  • when you see a (,): turn on the spot

  • when you see other punctuation (-:;): gasp air

First and Last Stomp

• read just the last word of each line accompanied by a stomp

• read just the first word of each line accompanied by a stomp

• After this reading, you can work with students to decipher the significance or pattern of these words and what it might tell you about the play, characters, or plot.

Reading on a Binary

• bring two chairs or markers that will be a physical representation of a binary

  • this could be feeling, connotation, intention, etc. 

• each student will take turns reading the piece and move their bodies to represent which end of the binary the words fall in

  • example: sun would be good, shadow would be bad

Object Reading

• passing an object back and forth

• you can only speak with the object in hand

  • students should think about how to grab it, how to keep it away from their partner, etc.

Motion Picture Monologue

• cut up a monologue and give students strips

• ask them to pick 4 words from each line to present to their group and see if they can put them in order

  • add a physical motion

  • narrow it down to one word/motion

• read the monologue and have them do their action when you get to their word

Movement Reading

• Ask students to follow the structure of a hit of the script reading, making a movement once a line.

  • tap

  • flick

  • scratch

  • press

  • scrunch

  • hit on leg

  • hug