Teaching Literature at Key Stage 3 and 4

Drama

Approaches to Shakespeare
Using new technologies

New digital technologies have transformed what doing Shakespeare means in practice in the classroom. Where once teachers had access to only one version of the text in performance – the Polanski Macbeth, say, or the Zeffirelli Romeo and Juliet – now there are readily accessible, cheap DVDs of many different versions of a play. What this means is that the issue of interpretation is foregrounded. Student teachers can enable their pupils to compare and contrast different versions, and hence to see each as the product of choices, of directors' interventions and actors' inflections. And close analysis is facilitated by the affordances of the new technologies. It is easy to focus attention on different interpretations of a single scene or even of a moment within that scene, to juxtapose different performances, to explore the composition of a single frame as an interpretation of a line, to consider the different intonations and emphases given to a single line by four or five different actors.

One particular resource, Kar2ouche (though somewhat demanding in terms of access to computers) does offer an interesting way to work with pupils in the classroom on producing their own on-screen versions of Shakespeare. If the institution in which you work can afford to purchase this, then student teachers could explore this resource for themselves and carry their expertise into their teaching practice.