Here are some resources for anyone looking for free, reliable resources for teaching Shakespeare. Whatever you need, you should find something here to help you.
Internet Shakespeare Editions
The site offers fully-edited modern online texts, and facsimiles of folios and of a selection of quartos. You’ll also find information on Shakespeare’s life and times, a Shakespeare in Performance gallery including modern production photographs, and links to sites on Shakespeare and the Renaissance. Full texts can be found online here.
Royal Shakespeare Company
There’s blogs, interviews and photos of current RSC productions in the What’s On section, along with material on past productions too, and the RSC YouTube channel.
Education resources page includes The Shakespeare Learning Zone and has ideas for classroom participation, resource packs aimed at different key stages and information about Shakespeare’s social context. See also: Share Your Shakespeare, a celebration of Shakespeare by the RSC’s audiences.
Shakespeare’s Globe
Education’s always been high on The Globe’s list of priorities, and the Discover page contains links to podcasts by actors, directors and academics relating to their productions, while the Globe Player offers a mixture of paid and free videos and clips from past productions.
Playing Shakespeare is “an educational flagship for London Schools”, but anyone can access its impressive resources including production photographs and interviews with actors in four Globe productions. The Globe also offers a wealth of the Teaching Resources.
Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
Here’s a range of free material and teaching resources, including an online course, Getting to Know Shakespeare, and in the Explore Shakespeare area there’s information on Shakespeare’s life through FAQs and video posts, as well as several lively blogs and forums. Keep an eye on the recently-announced partnership with Digital Theatre Plus which promises “The best of British theatre in your classroom”.
Folger Shakespeare Library
The world’s largest collection of Shakespeare material has a website to match, with lots of ideas in the Teach and Learn section, including cool facts for kids, a primary source archive and audio and video resources. The Folger’s digital image bank, LUNA, features tens of thousands of objects, prints, books and manuscripts. Information about suggested student activities can be found on the site, including ‘Strike a Pose‘, ‘Speak the Speech‘, and ‘Make a Picture‘.
The Folger has put together a useful support guide for teaching during COVID-19.
Victoria and Albert Museum
Another great site if you’re looking for visual material to inspire your students. Just enter some search terms into the box, or visit The Story of Theatre.
Super Summary Shakespeare Guide
The guide includes helpful background info and resources on various Shakespeare topics (common themes, historical context, research etc.) for students and teachers.
Times Educational Supplement Shakespeare Hub
Resources for teaching about Shakespeare’s life, language and poetry. Explore popular plays such as Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth and Othello, or find out about what life was really like in Elizabethan England.
Other Shakespeare Resources:
The British Library Shakespeare Resources.
The Show Must Go OnLine. Created by Robert Myles. Weekly performed readings of the Complete Plays of Shakespeare by a global cast of all levels of experience, in the order they were believed to have been written.
Complete Works: Table Top Shakespeare. Six performers create condensed versions of all of the Shakespeare plays, comically and intimately retelling them, using a collection of everyday objects as stand-ins for the characters on the one metre stage of an ordinary table top.
Diverse Illustrated Children’s Shakespeare: A Guide. A booklet authored by Dr Sarah Olive (Aston University; Member of BSA’s Education Committee), which offers useful contextual framing and a handy run-down of children’s Shakespeare adaptations from different genres.
Other General Resources:
The National Theatre YouTube channel and podcasts.
WhatsOnStage: stage shows, musicals, and opera you can watch online for free.
Theatre podcasts.
Bristol Old Vic Theatre Learning Materials.
Mousetrap Theatre Projects: Every Home a Theatre.
Members Resources
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