1. 60 Second Shakespeare
This brilliant BBC initiative challenges schools and students to come up with a one-minute interpretation of a Shakespeare play, which they can submit to the website in audio or video form. With tips on film and recording skills and fantastic entries available to view from other schools, there’s a huge amount to excite students about approaching Shakespeare from a new and exciting angle. Far from reductive, the exercise encourages students to consider all angles and themes of a text to agree on the most important and central aspects to include.
2. In Search of Shakespeare – The Playwright Game
This excellent resource from PBS encourages students to put themselves in Shakespeare’s shoes with an immersive, convincing ‘choose your own adventure’ style format. Great details and images help students to explore the political and cultural realities of the period, considering Shakespeare’s contemporary audiences and theatres in making difficult and complex decisions.
3. Shakespearean Murder Mystery
This fantastic site brings Shakespeare to life; immersing students in Shakespearean culture and history as they have to collect information, solve puzzles and interview suspects. A great way to get students talking about the social, cultural and historical context of the Bard and his plays.
4. Shakespeare App
A great resource for students studying several plays at once, this free app gives students the entire works at their fingertips, including sonnets, poems and ‘doubtful works’. One of the best features is a ‘flexible’ search function, allowing students to compare references to particular topics across different plays or to quickly find a particular quote or line without having to leaf through page after page.
5. Making a Scene
This great blog focuses specifically on ideas to help teachers bring Shakespeare to life in the classroom. Brilliant methods provide fresh approaches to texts and specific speeches, with tried-and-tested methods described in detail so teachers can learn from how other classes responded to the exercises.
What are your favourite online Shakespeare resources? Share them with us using the comments box below!
Images courtesy of Flickr. Image 1, pablo.sanchez. image 2, Books18.