Resources
Are you looking for resources for teaching early English literature, especially Shakespeare or early modern texts.
The resources here are free to use and adapt and use for your classrooms! Materials are free for educational use only.
The resources here are free to use and adapt and use for your classrooms! Materials are free for educational use only.
The Sounds of Shakespeare's Sonnets: Podcast Project
This is a group project that has students create a podcast on a single Shakespeare sonnet. Students perform the sonnet to emphasize its meaning and formal elements. Students record their podcast on zoom. Before the project, students complete another short written assignment on the Sonnets using the Oxford English Dictionary. That activity is also posted below.
Sounds of Sonnets Podcast Project
Shakespeare's Sonnets OED (Oxford English Dictionary) Activity
Sounds of Sonnets Podcast Project
Shakespeare's Sonnets OED (Oxford English Dictionary) Activity
Commonplace Book Digital Templates
1. A Power Point Digital Commonplace Book template. This PPT template was designed by Power Point University who shared the file for download on their YouTube channel here. Thank you very much to PowerPoint University for providing this wonderful resource for free. You can watch the video for more tips on creating your own notebook templates or altering this one.
To adapt the file for use as a Digital Commonplace Book, I've added five major components to the template based on features I require in my assignment: 1) Title page, 2) Table of Contents, 3) Introduction, 4) 15+ subject headings, and 5) an Index. Students should easily be able to copy and paste in quotations and images as well as add new textual material. To create new pages, they merely need to "Duplicate" a slide.
Shakespeare in Sheets Digital Project
Shakespeare in Sheets. https://about.illinoisstate.edu/shakespeareinsheets
This open-access digital resource recreates Shakespeare quartos in printable and foldable sheets of paper, just as they were issued from the printing presses in early modern England. The Shakespeare in Sheets editions are designed by the talented students in the Publishing Sequence in the Department of English Studies at Illinois State University.
For free pdf downloads of edition, click here.
This open-access digital resource recreates Shakespeare quartos in printable and foldable sheets of paper, just as they were issued from the printing presses in early modern England. The Shakespeare in Sheets editions are designed by the talented students in the Publishing Sequence in the Department of English Studies at Illinois State University.
For free pdf downloads of edition, click here.
Teaching Shakespeare with Cue Scripts
Anteloquy is a website that provides materials for using Cue Scripts to teach Shakespeare in performance
Teaching Shakespeare in Special Collections
The materials in this section were developed in collaboration with Milner Special Collections Library at Illinois State University. The assignments are based on new acquisitions in the library.
The Vest-pocket Shakespeare: Allied Press Series (c. 1934) was acquired in 2016 and Richard Day's Book of Christian Prayers (1578) was purchased in 2017 from a donor's gift to the library. Both acquisitions have been on display for our summer "Shakesperience" exhibitions, which are open to the public.
The Vest-pocket Shakespeare: Allied Press Series (c. 1934) was acquired in 2016 and Richard Day's Book of Christian Prayers (1578) was purchased in 2017 from a donor's gift to the library. Both acquisitions have been on display for our summer "Shakesperience" exhibitions, which are open to the public.
Vestpocket Shakespeare Guidelines
- Student research project on a set of 40 miniature Shakespeare volumes in Special Collections at Illinois State University.
- Students conducted research on the Book Design, Book Production, Marketing and Costs, Readers, and the History of Shakespeare in Miniature and created a website.
- See the Project Website created by the "Introduction to Shakespeare Class, Fall 2016"; Redesigned and Edited for Digital Publication by Katie Sall in 2017
- https://vestpocketshakespeare.wordpress.com/
Shakespeare and an Elizabethan Book of Prayers: Assignment Guidelines
Research Paper Assignment that asks students to draw connections between Robert Day's Book of Christian Prayers (1578)
and one of Shakespeare's plays (in my class, students could choose either Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet or Henry IV Part 1) .
Research Paper Assignment that asks students to draw connections between Robert Day's Book of Christian Prayers (1578)
and one of Shakespeare's plays (in my class, students could choose either Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet or Henry IV Part 1) .
Close Reading Shakespeare and Early Sources
Activity on Herbals and Physic in Romeo and Juliet
- Students use Gerard's Herball (1636) and the EEBO Copy of Barrough's Methode of Phisicke (1583) to explore Friar Laurence's speech (2.3.1-30) and Mercutio's medlar-plant innuendos (2.1.1-44).
- Students use Day's Book of Christian Prayers (1578) and the EEBO Copy of The Book of Common Prayer (1604) to explore how characters speak of the dead (or those they believe to be dead) in 4.4.19-43 and 5.3.74-120.
Starting Out with Shakespeare: Simple Classroom Activities
Activities designed to encourage students to engage closely with Shakespeare's texts.