‘Speak the speech, I pray you’

Today's youngsters cannot escape the Shakespearean text, with it featuring on all GCSE and A-Level English examination specifications. In preparing students for the Bard at Key Stage 4, a good school's English department will feature Shakespearean study within their Key Stage 3 curriculum map, much to the inevitable groans of a number of students.

As a secondary school Drama teacher, I was fortunate enough to work alongside an English department who welcomed forging cross-curricular links during Year 9's study of Macbeth. While our English colleagues handled the text's themes and language, my Drama team brought this language to life through staging the same key scenes studied in the English classroom. With a sound knowledge of the Elizabethan theatrical conditions, by which the students were fascinated, the learners' holistic understanding of the text was enhanced: they now understood the words Shakespeare had written through playing around with them.