Shakespeare

Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice

Most of this work was completed with three of my sons, ages 13, 11, and 9. Older and younger siblings joined us for some activities.
The original idea was that we would spend about a month studying Shakespeare. I had grand plans for what we were going to do, but for one reason or another (including other studies and real life), we weren’t able to accomplish as much as I would have liked. We did spend roughly a month on Shakespeare, but it was often in bits and pieces, except for a couple of afternoons devoted to rehearsing and presenting the play. The notes below reflect chiefly what we did, rather than what I had hoped to do. This is one study I would definitely like to do again, but try to be more organised with it.
Having said that, the boys really enjoyed Shakespeare!

Aims

	To learn about Shakespeare’s life and work – and, more generally, about Elizabethan theatre.
	To discover something of the way Shakespeare used language
	To become familiar with one of Shakespeare’s plays (The Merchant of Venice), and learn about its plot and characters

Helpful Websites

[Some of these are in the category of what we planned to do, rather than what we actually did, but I include them here for future reference]

	Paper model of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre – http://papertoys.com/globe.htm
	Mr William Shakespeare and the Internet – http://shakespeare.palomar.edu/
	Encyclopedia Britannica – Shakespeare and the Globe – http://search.eb.com/shakespeare/index2.html (A site we never used, but, it looks like an excellent resource).
	BBC pages to do with Shakespeare (We didn’t use much here, because we didn’t find the pages in time!) – http://www.bbc.co.uk/coventry/shakespeare/index.shtml
	Dressing for Shakespeare – http://www.davidclaudon.com/Elizabethan/Eliz.html (while the boys were working on The Merchant of Venice, the girls were editing their own abridgement of The Taming of the Shrew, which they planned to present to the family).

Activities:

	At the beginning of our study, we read Christina Bjork & Inga-Karin Eriksson's, Vendela in Venice as a family read-aloud. This led to a (much later) discussion topic – was the Venice we learn about in Vendela in Venice, the same as the city where the Merchant lived? How do we know? Did Shakespeare ever visit Venice? Why do you think he chose Venice as the setting for this play?
	We read Edith Nesbit’s version of “The Merchant of Venice” from Beautiful Tales from Shakespeare. (online at http://www.mainlesson.com) Then we used a narration cube to discuss the story (“theme”, “compare”, “the heart”, “character”, “setting”, “plot” – see Penny Gardner’s site for instructions: http://www.pennygardner.com/cube.html) [We hoped to repeat this exercise later on with the story from Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare, but ran out of time.]
	Copywork passage 1. The boys read through this, and then copied it out. The 13- and 11-year-olds did it in 1 day, the 9-year-old took two days. We briefly discussed punctuation.

I am a Jew. Hath
not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject
to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as
a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison
us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not
revenge?
(Shylock – Act 3, Scene 1)

After using using it for copywork, we used a slightly abridged version of the same passage for dictation:

We read Diane Stanley, Bard of Avon as a family read-aloud.

I assigned Rosemary Sutcliff, Brother Dusty-Feet as extra reading to my 9-year-old – who thoroughly enjoyed it. The other boys had already read it; so my 11-year-old had Geoffrey Trease, Cue for Treason assigned to him. (Meanwhile, the 13-year-old was reading Sherlock Holmes, which had nothing to do with Shakespeare, but it was a borrowed book, and he wanted to return it).

Copywork passage 2.
We read through the following passage and discussed some of the spelling rules (e.g. adding-ed). We also discussed the following grammar rules

	Use of commas before and after the word “Jew”. (When addressing someone, their name is separated from the rest of a sentence with commas. We noted that the sentence would make perfect sense without the word “Jew”, and the commas were being used to parenthesize the name)
	Apostrophe in “God’s” to denote possession
	Capital letters at the beginning of each line because it is poetry.
	Capital letters used for God and Jew.

The quality of mercy is not strained,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
’Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.
(Portia – Act 4, Scene 1)

The following day I gave each of the boys a copy of the following, which they had to copy out correctly. I actually printed it out with space between each line of text, so they could copy directly below the text. (They did not have the originals to refer to for this.) One thing I did not do, but should probably have done was to indicate the number of errors. The 13-year-old had no problems, but the 9-year-old had forgotten some of the rules we discussed the day before, and the 11-year-old was somewhere in between.

the quality of mercy is not straind,
it droppeth as the gentle rain from heven
upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
it blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
the thrond monarch better than his crown;
his sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
the attribute to awe and majesty,
wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
but mercy is above this sceptrd sway;
it is enthrond in the harts of kings,
it is an attribute to god himself;
and earthly power doth then show likest gods
when mercy seasons justice. therefore jew
though justice be thy plea, consider this,
that, in the course of justice, none of us
should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
and that same prayer doth teach us all to render
the deeds of mercy

Errors to correct in the above passage :

	All capitals at beginning of lines
	Capitalisation of God & Jew
	Final full stop
	Apostrophe in God’s
	Final -ed on words (missing the -e)
	Spelling – heaven
	Comma before & after “Jew” when addressing Shylock
	“Harts” should be “hearts”

For fun, all the boys did the BBC Shakespeare Quiz – http://www.bbc.co.uk/coventry/content/rich_media/shakespeare_game.shtml

The boys spent a couple of afternoons rehearsing, and we presented an abridged version of The Merchant of Venice to other members of the family. (The actual presentation took roughly 1 hour).

Lewis Carroll (author of Alice in Wonderland) wrote the following puzzle (which we did for fun):

            A stick I found that weighed two pound:
                I sawed it up one day
            In pieces eight of equal weight!
                How much did each one weigh?
(Everybody says 'a quarter of a pound,' which is wrong.)

For the answer to the puzzle see here

Puzzle Answer

In Shylock's bargain for the flesh was found
No mention of the blood that flowed around
So when the stick was sawed in eight,
The sawdust lost diminished from the weight.

Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice

Aims

Helpful Websites

Activities:

Puzzle Answer

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