Whole Class Reading of The Tempest

Having some background in Shakespearean language previously, it is now time to tackle The Tempest.

I got this idea of having the whole class read The Tempest together from Luke Bartolo, an English teacher who is currently using both these texts for his Advanced English students. His reason really resonated with me. He said,

"One of the challenges of tackling Shakespeare in the English classroom is finding the time to have your students read it. Assigning the text as a reading will work for some students but, owing to the nature of drama itself as a narrative genre best experienced live, this isn't going to work for the majority of the class." (Bartolo, 2019)

Very creatively, he the best approach he found for doing Shakespeare with Year 12 is to have the play read in one big go. They met as a class first thing in the morning with some breakfast, assigned roles, and read the text all the way through with a 20 minute intermission break.



Making a BIG morning of reading The Tempest together as a class.



Bartolo (2019)mentions that even Advanced English students will have a varied response to the idea of reading Shakespeare. He continues, "some level of support therefore needs to be supplied in helping to translate the language while they read". He created a new edition of The Tempest that would include annotations in support of our context. (Click on the image below to download text)



This is an unabridged presentation of The Tempest with a series of annotations alongside the original text. 

The Tempest Map

For visual learners, I've found this map on google images and is an excellent visual guide for students!