Shakespeare & Elizabethan England

60-Second Shakespeare
On this page, quick summaries of several plays in tabloid style from the BBC. Follow links to learn how your students can produce something similar.

100 Famous Bardisms
A list of 100 famous quotations from Shakespeare.

Absolute Shakespeare
An extensive site, including texts of plays and poems, biography, famous quotes, art, film adaptations, study guides, criticism, and the Globe Theatre.

Active Shakespeare
In "SonnetQuiz," add the final word to the heroic couplet. In "Shakespeare Matchmaker," choose the two characters from the same play. Students are encouraged to keep trying with the promise of a listing in the Hall of Fame.

All's Well that Ends Well
Text of the play.

The Bard: Shakespeare Up Close
Students will choose a scene from one of Shakespeare's plays and re-enact the scene in a modern setting. They will record the re-enactment on digital video, and then add commentary discussing why they chose the scene, its importance to the overall play, and reasons why they chose to modernize the scene as they did.

Appreciating the Bard's Art: Rewriting Shakespeare's Epitaph Using Iambic Pentameter
After reading Shakespeare's epitaph, students compose a better one.

Canadian Adaptations of Shakespeare Project
This site offers a variety of entries to the Bard: audio, video, an arcade game, and a wonderful interactive folio resource.

Cleveland Press Shakespeare Photographs
This searchable site has Cleveland Press photos from Shakespearean performances, 1870-1982.

A Close Reading of Shakespeare on Your Feet
After introductory discussion and viewing a video (link included), students combine close reading with acting by "physicalizing" the text. This lesson uses the Nurses's speech from Romeo and Juliet and Petruchio's greeting to Kate from The Taming of the Shrew, and it can be adapted for other scenes, as well.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
Online texts of the plays (not the poetry) from MIT.

A Day in the Life: A Personal Journey Through the English Renaissance
After doing Internet research about life in Elizabethan England, students write a diary entry from the perspective of a chosen character for September 13, 1597, illustrating their knowledge of life in the Renaissance.

English Class in Performance
If you want your students to get up and perform Shakespeare, here are some abridged scripts: The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and The Tempest.

Everyday Expressions from Shakespeare
From "a fool's paradise" to "woe is me" -- lines that linger.

Explore Shakespeare with Google
"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women ..." How does the rest of that line go? And what play does it come from? Find it here, in a searchable database of the plays (but not, as of this writing, the poems).

The Folger Shakespeare Library
Lesson plans, primary sources, and Shakespeare for kids: a terrific resource!

Frontline: the Shakespeare Mystery
Who really wrote Shakespeare's plays and poems: the man from Stratford or Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford? This site explores both possibilities. Can be used with or without the Frontline video.

Historical Costumes Game
This interactive site invites users to dress a man or woman in Victorian or Tudor costume.

Illustrated Shakespeare
Links to fine art related to various plays.

In Search of Shakespeare
This site was designed to support the PBS series, but it includes a variety of materials, including lesson plans for elementary, middle, and high school students.

An Introduction to Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Era
After research, students write about a day in their lives as if they lived in Elizabethan London.

An Introduction to Shakespeare's Life and Times
Click to select the version best for you, then go to an extensive collection of links covering Shakespeare's life, the Elizabethan theatre, society, history and politics, new ideas of the time, dramatic styles, and some plays. Click on the site map for a specific index. A great site for research.

Lesson Plan Archives
Introductory, general, and play-specific lessons from the Folger Library.

The Living Words: Examining the Evolution of Language by Documenting Unique Words in One's Own Culture
"Students share thoughts about the cultural nuances inherent in different languages. They then document words and phrases unique to their own generation, region and culture. Learning is synthesized by updating a 16th century English text into contemporary American-English."

Masters of Chiasmus: William Shakespeare
Examples of chiasmus from a variety of plays.

M. C. Bard: Hip Hop and Shakespeare
In this lesson, students will compare lyrics from hip hop songs with monologues from Shakespeare’s plays, and perform both for the class.

Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet
Possibly the best, most comprehensive, Shakespeare site on the Web, with links to e-texts, background information, and much more.

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