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ShakeSpeare For all

Teaching Shakespeare can be a very challenging task and even more so with particular students who struggle with the language and the context of his works. Here, Zoe Enser offers her tips on how to make lessons on Shakespeare accessible for all students.

By Zoe Enser

Tackling something as challenging as Shakespeare can be a daunting prospect. The alien language, the unfamiliar context, and the sometimes-complex narratives, with subplots and a constantly changing variety of bit players littering the stage, even the most proficient reading can find the prospect of exploring this overwhelming. If you are a student with an SEN, or have literacy needs or English is a second language, this can feel even more confusing, and the temptation to avoid this challenge is understandable. However, I am a great believer that Shakespeare’s plays have enough inherent value to mean they should be available to all, especially if we want to then discuss what it is which does, or does not, make his plays important to us.

Here are some ways that I teach Shakespeare in a way which means all students, regardless of any additional needs they have, can gain from the study of his plays:

1) First, I begin by ensuring I have a good understanding of what the specific need is or what barriers Shakespeare may present to particular students. This is not much different to how I would approach any class, as the more I know their starting points or different requirements the better I can ensure learning can take place.

In many ways studying his work can be a great leveller though. Regardless of starting points, all may well find exploring his work a challenge and will be encountering something brand new, even if they have studied some of his plays before. All will experience something which they find difficult and will need to scratch their head over and just because some may find aspects of reading trickier than their peers, this doesn’t mean they won’t be able to examine plot, theme, character, and language in his work.

The starting points of the students doesn’t just mean knowing reading ages and fluency, although that can be useful, but it means exploring what they may already know, what they may have already experienced, and what misconceptions they may have picked up on their journey to my classroom. Films like Bill or programmes like Upstart Crow are excellent entertainment, and in both cases the writers have done very interesting things with their knowledge of Shakespeare’s history and writing, but they can very easily have taken students off into a range of potentially problematic directions. So, whilst I access where students are through questioning and

discussion, I also take time to address these initial misconceptions, focusing my attention on those who may struggle even more if they struggle to move away from that initial thinking.

2) The next part of the process is to think carefully about the steps and stages we need to go through, often beginning with exploring and embedding knowledge of the plot and character. I identify where the hinge points may be, those moments in the plot where if they don’t understand what has happened, the meaning may become tangled. For some EAL or SEN students these misunderstandings can come thick and fast if we were to dive straight into a performance or reading, so I will offer short summaries either at the start of the sequence of learning or after watching or reading a scene to support all. I also plan carefully how the plot will unfold for them, so I can ensure they are not overwhelmed by too much information at once.

“All will experience something which they fi nd diffi cult and will need to scratch their head over and just because some may fi nd aspects of reading trickier than their peers, this doesn’t mean they won’t be able to examine plot, theme, character, and language in his work.”