Customer Reviews

Teaching Shakespeare: A Handbook for Teachers (Cambridge School Shakespeare)

I am an experienced English teacher, but this book was an eye-opener. It's full of inspiring suggestions that could be adapted to any of the plays, and what I found especially useful was the simplicity of Gibson's explanations and descriptions - they would be accessible to students of all levels. He suggests ways of bringing Shakespeare to students that I wouldn't have thought of myself. Well worth a read for any English teacher.

Imagine - you are a brand new teacher looking out over a sea of expectant faces (none of whom you have ever clapped eyes on before). In one hand a copy of Macbeth - in your other hand a copy of Rex Gibson's 'Making Shakespeare come alive in your classroom'. You feel safe and secure in the knowledge that by the end of the lesson you will have seen your reticent Year 9s flying off tables insulting each other in Elizabethan verse, you will have watched the giggling girls from the back of the room do a fine impression of three board Cockney housewives and you will have had the whole class actively using a language that was alien to them only an hour previously! This book is so full of fantastic ideas (tried and tested in the theatre and on countless school kids up and down the country) that it is invaluable. It makes you wish your English teacher had a copy when you were listening to a tortuous read through of Romeo and Juilet on that long, wet Friday afternoon of your GCSEs (or O Levels for those of you who need to go back that far!) Practical use for teachers to Am Dram darlings to those making their livings treading the board - SO WHY HAVEN'T YOU ALREADY GOT YOUR COPY?

ive been teaching years & like most people am a bit afraid of the man himself. but as a teacher i finally had to face Shakespeare...this is a must have for anyone starting with shakespeare..now my students have a love for him too & all because this book made it simple for their teacher!

There is a lot of information on Shakespeare in this book - imagery, language etc. If the title of the book was "An introduction to Shakespeare with some ideas for teaching it" then I would give it 5 stars. One would assume that a book called "Teaching Shakespeare" was written for either drama teachers or English teachers. Then why the need for pages on Shakespeare's imagery? What English or drama teacher wouldn't already know all about that? The author gives us some novel ideas for teaching Shakespeare but not enough to warrant a whole book - he pads it out to book-length by sticking in a load of info that anyone who was even thinking of teaching Shakespeare should already know.

Brilliant! I have wanted this book, for some time, to give to my husband who is interested in upholstery. It will be his Christmas present.