Y7: Introducing Shakespeare (Week 4)

Hello Year 7,

Thank you to all of you who have got to the end of Animal Farm and done the end of unit quiz and book review. Use the links if you still need to do them.

We’re now moving on to Shakespeare.

In this unit, we will be focusing on two key areas:

1) Shakespeare’s life, times and work.

2) Shakespeare’s sonnets

These two areas of study will give you a good introduction to ‘The Bard’ and will set you up well for further study in Years 8, 9 and 11.

This week’s work:

Find out what you can about the life of Shakespeare:

• who was he?
• where and when was he born?
• what were the key events in his life?
• what was he famous for?
• why is he considered the greatest writer in English literature?

Presenting your work

For this task, you can do any of the following:

• Make notes in your exercise book
• Make notes on paper (if you don’t have your book)
• Create a powerpoint presentation (you could share this with your teacher via email, or even with your whole class when we get back)
• Create a poster/factsheet

If you have another idea in mind, please check with your teacher first.

Resources

As Shakespeare is the most famous writer in history, there are lots of resources out there. Feel free to explore (the links section here ------> is a good place to start). But here are some useful documents and links to get you started:

• Who was William Shakespeare? (Shakespeare Birthplace Trust)
• Shakespeare’s Life: A Timeline (Shakespeare Birthplace Trust)
• Shakespeare’s Life and Legacy (BBC Teach)
• Shakespeare’s Life (Folger Shakespeare Library)
• Shakespeare’s Life and Times (RSC)
• Shakespeare (British Library)
• Shakespeare is everywhere (TED-x Talks)

(If you're browsing on an Apple device, download this word doc here)

Extra stuff

• Why not use the internet to help you with this true or false quiz? (We'll provide answers next week)

• The Faces of Shakespeare (What did the Bard really look like?) (a fascinating article comparing portraits of Shakespeare)

• Sir Patrick Stewart reads Shakespeare’s Sonnets (Twitter) (Instagram)

We’ll be back next week with a Shakespeare quiz and some work on Shakespeare’s times and theatre.

Let us know if you need anything,

THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT