Hamlet and the Final Project

Sorry that I haven't been updating my blog very much. I have been blogging, just not on this blog. Since most of the work I've been doing in Shakespeare class and outside of class has to do with my Final Project I've been posting on my group's website.
This is just a run-down of everything we've accomplished. It has been a blast! After we finally figured out what we wanted to do, we got right to work on creating artwork based on each of the acts in Hamlet, rereading the whole play. We also each chose a theme and then wrote a lesson plan based on that theme. I chose to look at how control is demonstrated, both physically and mentally, in Hamlet. It was lots of fun, too, to be able to go through the play again and learn more about the in depth stuff. And then to respond to it by creating a lesson plan helped me learn a lot. At first I felt inadequate to create a lesson plan because I thought: "What do I know that no one else knows about this? Nothing, therefore I have no authority to create a lesson where I am telling someone how and what to teach." That was literally how I felt. But now that I've done it, I really appreciate that I had the experience and opportunity to share my input about an idea that our group had. And now anyone can find our curriculum and use it in their classroom! Isn't that exciting!
Our curriculum basically brought up themes from Hamlet, going to the text for specifics, and tried to help the students understand them better by making them apply it through the creation of artwork. We all followed each others lesson plans to make examples for those teachers out there who'd be interested. It was great!
I also appreciated the opportunity and direction this project gave me in creating art that responded to Shakespeare. I was wishing for some spark, some lightbulb moment, to come so I could just make something. And then we created this art group and I'm happy to have had the experience and opportunity to engage Shakespeare creatively.