Fellow blogger and Shakespeare fan, Alan Peat, (@alanpeat) was a bit bored one day and decided for his 50th birthday to tweet all of Shakespeare’s plays in 50 tweets or less (not in one day, cuz, that’d be a bit crazy). So, he knocked out his first “Shakestweet”, Henry V.
That leads to my thoughts on another Shakespeare lesson plan, the ShakesTweet. What a great way to engage technology with Shakespeare. As I’ve said before, probably half your kids already have a twitter account, and what a great way to get the basic storyline across? 140 characters can actually go a long way.
When I write my books, I start by making the play as short as possible, with as few characters as possible. Only then do I have the basic core of the story, the frame. From that frame, I can scaffold on more characters, details, and subplots of the play that I deem fit for the kids and the level of melodramatic nonsense I want to incorporate. (It’s pretty fun!) I’m no Shakespeare aficionado, I just love engaging kids and seeing them grow from learning through excitement and passion.
So, get your kids engaged with the ShakesTweet lesson plan, and be sure to mention me in the process, so I can follow along: @Shakespeare4kid #ShakesTweet
See you in the matrix…