Year 12 English Literature

Shakespeare Research Project

Choose a Shakespeare play with which you are familiar. You are going to prepare a presentation in pairs to be delivered in the week following the 21st September. Your work needs to be ready by the 21st September. You need to work with a partner who has also read and studied the play you have chosen.

Find an example of a 'critical interpretation' of the play. This might focus on the interpretation given by a director in a production of a play, a production which you have seen in live theatre or which has been recorded as a film or a video. You might even find a written review of a production which gives a clear and detailed description of the performance.

You may want to focus on a written piece. You may want to read a critical essay on your chosen play. Many are available in books, and some on the internet. Check with your teacher that any essay you find on the internet is appropriate; some are not.

You are going to describe to the group the critical interpretation you have chosen so that everyone understands how the play has been directed, for example, or how a critic has interpreted aspects of the text. You then need to appreciate or comment on the interpretation, comparing it with your own views and balancing the interpretation you have studied with your own understanding of the play.

Finally, you need to get together with your partner and compare the two approaches you have evaluated. What points of comparison can you make? Try to use comparison as a way of interpreting the two approaches you have explored. You also need to prepare a small handout to accompany your work. You must include a bibliography.

Deadline: 21st September

Resources: Shakespeare play, critical essays, productions seen, reviews. The sixth-form library - it is hoped - will reopen on Monday 17th September. Enter all this work correctly in a bibliography.

Presentation: five to ten minutes per student, so a pair's work will take approximately fifteen minutes.