June Checklist


      
Studying Shakespeare


      

        
Choose a sonnet, passage or excerpt. Read
        the same selection every a day for a week.
        
Read the Lambs' version of any play. This
        will give an overview of the story.
        
Listen to an audio book on the same play
        (or video, although modern video adds sex and gore).
        
Read the play. This triple exposure builds
        familiarity with Shakespeare and the particular work you are
        studying.
        
Re-read and do copywork from some of the
        easier to understand passages. Our "Copywork of the Month"
        has featured Shakespeare's very best selections (April, May,
        June 2001).
        
Have your child rewrite the story in their
        own words, or...
        
Have your child narrate the story as you
        write or record it.
        
Read a biography of Shakespeare.
        
Go on to another work if you desire.
      

      
 

      
Shakespeare's works often provide moral
      lessons. For instance, Macbeth listens to witches (evil spirits)
      and believes their half truths which lead him, with his wife's
      encouragement, to many murders. Our
      boys brought out, among other lessons, that "justice will
      prevail," and that you should "think before you act."
      There is the lesson about the influence of companionship (his
      wife), and so on.

      
 

      
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All articles are copyrighted. Publications
      using more than an excerpt must contact us. Interested
      people may share with others or use exact excerpts in publications
      as long as following complete contact information is published
      with the excerpt.

      
Copyright 2001 Lorraine Curry. 



      Reprinted with permission from the EasyHomeschooling Website.
      See over 40 pages of free resources at:

      
http://www.easyhomeschooling.com

      
EasyHomeschooling

      God's Gardener

      PO Box 95

      Boelus NE 68871

      Phone 308-996-4497

      Fax 308-996-9104

      info@easyhomeschooling.com

      
 

      
Shakespeare is...

      
After the King James Bible,
      our loftiest model of the English language.

      
 

      
Be great in act, as you have
      been in thought;

      Be stirring as the time; be Fire with fire;

      Threaten the Threat'ner, and outface the brow 

      Of bragging Horror: so shall inferior eyes,

      That borrow their behaviors from the great,

      Grow great by your Example, and put on

      The dauntless spirit of Resolution.

      
The following
      is from Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Act I, Scene III. Polonius
      blesses and advises his son Laertes, as he is about to depart
      from home.


      
See thou character. Give thy
      thoughts no tongue,

      Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.

      Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.

      The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,

      Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;

      But do not dull thy palm with entertainment

      Of each new-hatched, unfledg'd comrade. Beware

      Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in,

      Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.

      Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice:

      Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.

      Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

      But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy:

      For the apparel oft proclaims the man;

      And they in France of the best rank and station

      Are most select and generous chief in that.

      Neither a borrower nor a lender be:

      For loan oft loses both itself and friend;

      And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

      This above all,--to thy ownself be true;

      And it must follow, as the night the day,

      Thou canst not then be false to any man.

      Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!

      
 

      


      
"Techniques" tells how to choose and use literature!