Strategies
The most critical instructional strategy for this unit is reading aloud in class. While I commonly assign reading to be completed outside of class, particularly for my advanced students, Richard III is best consumed as a performance. I will assign character parts the day before class so that students may run through their lines for homework before we read the scene together the following day. This will help students take ownership of the play if they are assigned a character. It will also help each scene to be read with greater fluency, which of course is preferable to cold reads, which often impair comprehension. I will continually re-assign parts so that all students are included in the reading throughout the unit. As always, I will consider students’ particular strengths and weaknesses when deciding on whom to assign to each role. The arrangement of desks in a circle is significant for dramatic read-alouds because each reader should be seen by the other students in the class. While I do not expect students to get up and physically perform their character, I do emphasize that their reading is a performance and energy is expected. I will also attempt to read The Daughter of Time as a play in class. The majority of the novel is dialogue between Grant and the various characters who visit his hospital room. In the past, students have found much of this novel to be dry and unengaging. By assigning character parts and reading it like a drama, students will be kept on their toes.
Since students are tasked with identifying the literary Richard in Shakespeare’s play, it is essential that they track evidence of his looks, speech, thoughts, actions, and effect on others. Because students are using old copies of the play, it is best that they take notes outside of the text. This will also allow them to better organize their findings. I will provide a note-taking organizer on which they can continually add to their evidence. I will model appropriate note-taking for the first scene of the play, but thereafter, students will be responsible for documenting their own evidence while we read aloud in class, or for homework after we have completed a scene. Their notes will be the basis for their culminating assignment, the “deleted” soliloquy in which Richard justifies his actions.
Reading any of Shakespeare’s plays affords opportunities to include theater exercises in the classroom. For Richard III, acting games can be used to dissect Richard’s character. For example, while we are reading Act III, scene 1 in class, I will plan for two to three sets of actors to read the parts. One cast will be given the task of playing the scene as if Richard is cold and distant. Another group will play the scene as if Richard is snarky and intentionally ironic. Another group will play the scene as if Richard is excessively annoyed with the young princes. After viewing the scene several ways, students will discuss which approach was most appropriate. Of course, students will need to articulate reasonable critiques and observe our class’s discussion norms.
Once students have read The Daughter of Time, they must compose a eulogy for Richard III. When the compositions are due in class, students will read them aloud as if we were holding a memorial service for Richard. Then students will view the recent funeral held for Richard at Leicester Cathedral and discuss the vicar’s tribute to Richard. They will then write a brief critique of it in which they comment on what type of eulogy is most appropriate for such an unprecedented event.
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