Bringing Forth the Bard: A Guide to Teaching Shakespeare in the English Classroom

Written by Zoe Enser,Bringing Forth the Bard: A guide to teaching Shakespeare in the English classroom links together the golden threads which run through Shakespeare’s work and highlights how teachers can best explore these with students.

Foreword by Professor Emma Smith.
The more you explore the plays of Shakespeare, the more you realise how they are an interrelated network of ideas and themes – linked to his context, his audience and his understanding of the world.
In Bringing Forth the Bard, Zoe Enser equips busy teachers with the core knowledge that will enable them to make links between the themes, characters, language and allusions in Shakespeare’s oeuvre. Each chapter includes tips on how to bring his plays to life in the classroom, and features case studies from practising teachers in a range of contexts to illustrate how they can ensure that their students develop an appreciation of his work – moving beyond the requirements of exams and empowering them to engage in the discussion around his influence and enduring appeal.
Underpinned by the author’s academic enquiries on the subject, at both undergraduate and master’s level, the book enables teachers to access the information they need in order to enrich their teaching beyond a single play and begin to unpick the threads of Shakespeare’s work as a whole. The link between subject knowledge and pedagogical approaches runs throughout the book, focusing on the Shakespeare plays most popularly taught in the classroom and how we can enrich students’ understanding of these by looking both at the links across the domain and the bigger picture his work presents.
Zoe builds a detailed schema of Shakespeare’s work, his world, his ideas and his influences – and offers signposts to further reading and provides an appendix which will support teachers to rapidly find references to the plays they are teaching, and the ideas related to them.
Suitable for teachers of English in all phases. Chapters include: Chapter 1: Bringing Forth His World Chapter 2: Bringing Forth His Characters Chapter 3: Bringing Forth His Allusions Chapter 4: Bringing Forth His Themes Chapter 5: Bringing Forth His Language Chapter 6: Bringing Forth His Theatre Chapter 7: Bringing Forth His Allusions