William Shakespeare, As You Like It
Lesson plans and teaching resources

For introductory, background and other resources, try Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Age . For links to other plays, try the Shakespeare Main Page.

60-Second Shakespeare
On this page, a tabloid-style summary of the play from the BBC. Follow links to learn how your students can produce something similar.

"All the world's a Stage"
Hypertext of the speech by Jacques.

As You Like It
Summary, themes, imagery, symbolism, more.

As You Like It Teaching Guide
Introduction, scene-by-scene synopsis, teaching activities, genre studies, themes, language, act-by-act discussion questions, projects, and more. Requires Adobe Reader or compatible application for access.

As You Like It Word Plays
The students will explore Jaques' "Seven Ages of Man" speech by creating word plays. The goal is to get the students to think about the sounds and shapes of individual words in a monologue and to put actions with those words.

As You Like It
Follow up activities, including a wedding reception.

A Guide to Teaching the Interpretation of Shakespeare's As You Like It
These 8 lessons were designed for inner-city high school students. Students work with vocabulary words, character traits, reading comprehension skills, and seeing parallels between the events of the play and modern life. A final assignment asks students to use the writing process to write a review.

Introducing As You Like It
By the end of the class, the students should know the names of the characters and know a few of the lines that each character says. They will also use the changing relationships to predict the plot of the play.

A Question of Style
Students will explore the nature of comedy by informally staging the opening scenes in Shakespeare's As You Like It . Students will consider a variety of stylistic approaches that may be used in staging the play and select the one they think is most interesting and that will most effectively convey the text to the audience. Students will seek support for their choices from theatrical tradition.

What Shakespeare Plays Originally Sounded Like
This video (10:07) uses examples from the sonnets, the prologues to Henry V and Romeo and Juliet , and lines from As You Like It to explore the impact of Original Pronunciation on understanding Shakespeare's language.