Shakespeare's Twelfth Night
"If music be the food of love, play on."
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Twelfth Night is our follow-up Shakespeare play after completing Macbeth. We would usually begin right after - or close to right after Winter Break. On the three days that students come back - before we began this play - the students would work on The Once and Future King - a book that was assigned as a long-term reading at the beginning of the year, but that most students began and finished during the Winter Break. Twelfth Night is studied as a prelude to a short unit on Literary Criticism. That is one of the reasons for choosing this play - there is SO much literary criticism (of all sorts) on this play - feminist, Marxist, New Historicism and much more. I will be posting that unit when this one has been completed.
In the old days (the first 10 years or so of my career) I used to teach three Shakespeare Plays in British Literature. A Tragedy (Macbeth), a Comedy (The Tempest), and a History (Henry IV, Part 1). About the same time that I dropped the third play - I changed The Tempest to Twelfth Night. It was a trade-off that had a cost. While Twelfth Night may be richer in Literary Criticism fodder - it does lose some social ideas to talk about such as slavery, colonization, and also feminism. I will say how however, that the students really reacted more positively (and laughed a lot harder) at Twelfth Night. By now, the the students are confident in their Shakespeare - they are practicing their Macbeth Play scenes - and they've come to understand an entire play mainly through their own reading, questions, and discussion.
We go through Twelfth Night a lot faster than we did Macbeth -gone are the language exercises, most of the "up on your feet" activities (though we still have some), and the ancillary materials that surrounded Macbeth (and that served to get students to understand and appreciate not only that play - but Shakespeare in general). I also used a lot more of the small group readings (as opposed to the whole class) as it gave students a chance to 1) practice reading lines (their Macbeth scenes they are performing are coming up) 2) ask and answer questions more (how great is this after just doing an entire Shakespeare play.
Of course - one of the coolest things is that we begin studying the play right on or darn close to the Twelfth Night (twelfth night of Christmas - The Epiphany). And so what better way to begin than with a Twelfth Night Party!
How fortuitous to be doing this play right around the time that it (or at least the title) takes place: Twelfth Night - aka the Twelfth Day of Christmas or the Feast of the Epiphany. There are two major parts to today's lesson - first, the students perform skits which they will make up on the spot (well - they have 5 minutes to plan it out); the next part is the Acting Circle where the students will read a scene from Twelfth Night cold (sight unseen) - first looking at the words - then what is being said - and finally they will get up an act it out with the entire class being the (now) well-informed directors.
For posting our discussions, I will follow the same format as I did with Macbeth. There will be those same pages with my notes on them - what I look at when we have a class reading (discussion). There will be - on these web pages - in my lesson description, Some Points Covered in Today's Reading - this will reiterate some of the that are in my play notes (which I hope you can read) in an intelligible, more explicated way. There will also be an audio recording of one of my classes having that day's reading and discussion. Though every year I did not succeed - by the end of the period I want to be done with Act I (essentially covering every Act in a day.
For posting our discussions, I will follow the same format as I did with Macbeth. There will be those same pages with my notes on them - what I look at when we have a class reading (discussion). There will be - on these web pages - in my lesson description, Some Points Covered in Today's Reading - this will reiterate some of the that are in my play notes (which I hope you can read) in an intelligible, more explicated way. There will also be an audio recording of one of my classes having that day's reading and discussion. Though every year I did not succeed - by the end of the period I want to be done with Act I (essentially covering every Act in a day.
This time, I have never done Act 2 of this play as anything other than these small group readings. It is short enough (with a few skips here and there) to get done in one period. Remember - it is important that the students do this just like we do as a class at large - only smaller. Make sure they actually read the play aloud and that only the Group Leader has the questions (till it's over - then there should be copies of the questions for everyone). Students should take notes just like they do when we do a whole-class reading of the play.
For Act 3, we take a hybrid approach to going over the scenes. We begin with a short class reading of Scene 1 up to line 69. The class is divided into groups - most groups will be summarizing a given scene - but while one of them reads the summary aloud, the rest of the group will be giving an over-the-top pantomime performance of that scene. One group, however, will be putting on (acting out with words and everything) the first part of scene 4. The students perform the pantomimes (and scene) in the right order - so by the end of the class we have gone over the entire act.
Again, the students will be reading the play aloud (as we do in class) - and the Group Leader will be asking questions (and not reading lines aloud) when they get to the appropriate line). Remember - it is important that the students do this just like we do as a class at large - only smaller. For very small groups (2-3) you should advise them to combine with other group(s) to try to have a minimum of 5 students in a group. If the group is over 8 - you may want them to split into two (but keep next to each other). There is also a quote and question about connecting their reading to Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Students watch the end of the Trevor Nunn version of Twelfth Night. We start right at the hilarious encounter between Malvolio and Olivia (Act 3, scene 4). That means this segment of the film covers almost half of the entire play! While the students are watching the film, they will answer a few short questions that I will collect at the end of the period (or at least I tell them I will...).
This is the THIRD volume in the series and it has lessons for Twelfth Night and Othello. Here is the description from Amazon: "This volume of the Shakespeare Set Free series is written by institute faculty and participants, and includes the latest developments in recent scholarship. It bristles with the energy created by teaching and learning Shakespeare from the text and through active performance, and reflects the experience, wisdom, and wit of real classroom teachers in schools and colleges throughout the United States. "
Here is the description from Amazon: The authoritative edition of Twelfth Night from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series for students and general readers, includes:-Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play, Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play, Scene-by-scene plot summaries, A key to the play’s famous lines and phrases, An introduction to reading Shakespeare’s language, An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the play, Fresh images from the Folger Shakespeare Library’s vast holdings of rare books, An annotated guide to further reading, Essay by Catherine Belsey
Macbeth - Folger Edition - Text Only
The Folger Library has an online edition of the play without the annotations - Shakespeare words (what appears on the right hand page in the paperback edition. It also includes in this online edition the very useful synopses that appear before each scene.
In addition to the "on your feet activities" that we will do while studying Macbeth - we will also read (and sometimes act out) the entire play (skipping just a few lines [the ones that Shakespeare probably didn't even write). I have created a separate page on this website for How to Read Plays in your Classroom. To summarize - every student will read. I start at the first student in the class - the first row - and that student will read for the first character in that scene - the next student will read for the next character and so on. The student "owns" that character for an entire page - reading until the next page. If a line continues over to the next page - the student finishes those lines before the next student picks up that character. On the Reading Plays Aloud in Class page there are diagrams and examples.
I truly believe it is imperative to have all of the students read the text aloud (again see the page on Reading Plays Aloud). It's fine if they're not polished - it's fine if they mispronounce words - it is a much more active endeavor when they are doing the reading and it also keeps them on their toes - they don't want to miss their entrance... Especially when we get to enjambed lines!
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