Bringing Shakespeare alive for students with SEN

last updated:July 2008

This approach uses ‘desktop theatre’ because visits to live theatre are not a viable option.

Many teachers take students to the theatre to help them with their Shakespeare related work. But what do you do if you can’t take your students to a theatre production?

Angelika Hickey decided to bring the theatre to the classroom. She created a lesson for students with SEN which required them to make a desktop theatre and use their characters to act out the scene from Macbeth that they were studying.

Download Angelika’s resources for this lesson from this page.
 
Why this works

Too often children with SEN are set unchallenging tasks because teachers focus on what they cannot do. This task challenged the students but was designed to ensure they could succeed by focusing on what the students could do.

The students were involved in a range of learning modes (visual, kinaesthetic, verbal) and were challenged to perform through their cut-out characters.

Angelika also involved the students in formative assessment through the feedback sheets.