Reading Shakespeare with All Our Students

Presenters: Mary Ellen Dakin and Christina Porter
Date: December 3, 2009
Time: 5:00--6:00 p.m. EST

Reading Shakespeare takes everything we’ve got-–an arsenal of strategies grounded in research for teaching advanced literacy to all our students, and the imagination to adapt those strategies to Shakespeare’s early modern text. This web seminar focuses on the collaborative reading of Shakespeare’s plays. Collaborative as in what we can learn from classroom teachers, adolescents, literacy researchers, Shakespeare scholars, performers, and media specialists; reading as in what we can do with increasing independence to construct meaning from the transaction with challenging content written in early modern English; plays as in what we can apply to thirty-seven because the reading skills and strategies outlined in this seminar are transferable across the collection of Shakespeare’s plays. In this seminar, participants will engage in a progression of strategies that sets the stage for comprehension of a play by William Shakespeare and guides students of all ability levels through the reading of Act One. From pre-reading strategies to focused reading to reading movie posters of Shakespeare’s plays, participants will come away with research-based and classroom-tested ideas for teaching all our students how to read Shakespeare, and why.

Can't attend? Click here to access the On Demand version of Mary Ellen Dakin and Christina Porter's Web seminar.

Mary Ellen Dakin, a National Board Certified Teacher, has taught English Language Arts since 1987 in both a private and a public secondary school. A fellowship at the Folger Shakespeare Library in 1994 sparked her passion for exploring innovative ways to teach Shakespeare’s plays, and since that time she has presented workshops on teaching Shakespeare in cities throughout the country. From 2002 to 2006, she was a master teacher at the Folger Library’s Teaching Shakespeare Institute. She was elected to the NCTE Secondary Section Steering Committee in 2006. Her essays have appeared in Shakespeare Magazine, the Harvard Educational Review, and English Journal. At Revere High School, Dakin teaches world literature, Advanced Placement English language composition, and the Shakespeare elective. Mary Ellen is the author of the 2009 NCTE publication, Reading Shakespeare with Young Adults.

Grade Level(s): Middle, Secondary