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Learning Activities for A Midsummer Night's Dream

The reading guide serves as a basis for reading and writing about the play. The guide builds up from personal response to more complex analysis. It provides representing activities, such as diagramming the choices of Hermia. The extending your response sections in the guide provides many opportunities to extend to other subject areas. The music connection on page 27 of the guide would be a lot of fun for students, and should help them appreciate the 'silly' elements of the play.

The Concise play builds on the activities in the Reading Guide. See below for more ideas on viewing a movie version of the play in conjunction with reading it.

The Midsummer Night's News offers a solid creative writing exercise for students, that builds upon their personal response and analysis in the reading guide. The act of publishing and peer review should be a confidence building activity for students. Publishing will cover both writing and representing outcomes for students. Extending it to be a news show will help cover speaking and listening outcomes as well.

Here are some other ideas:

Writing
- Write a character sketch on Puck. Build on a personal response (Think of a TV show where the characters got up to some mischief. What were the consequences of their actions? Describe your mischievous character). Get students in groups to share their descriptions, come up with a list of character traits, and discuss which ones help to describe Puck. From there a mini-lesson on composing a character sketch may be required - see ResourceLines. Students should submit the sketch for evaluation. A similar sketch could be done on Bottom, relating to a TV or movie character that is there for comic relief.

- What does the love potion symbolize? Decide what you think (how would it make you feel if you were put under a love potion), and write an essay addressing this question, using examples from the text to back up your argument.

- Think of a Romantic Comedy you have watched recently - either a sit-com or a movie. What comic elements have remained common since Shakespeare's time?

- Choose a movie to use instead of the play the Craftsmen performed in Act 5. Write the dialogue for the Act, considering that you would want to include many of the ideas and themes of the main plot. Perform the alternative ending for the play.

- Many Newfoundland communities have stories about fairies. Ask your parents if they know of anyone in the community who tells stories about fairies. Interview those people, and write a report on the 'history' of fairies in your town. See ResourceLines for tips on conducting interviews (do a mini-lesson).

- For more great questions, visit Surfing with the Bard and link to the Midsummer study questions. This site also has a guide for teachers. Also, the downloadable study guide is a fantastic resource for anyone who loves the play! Read the help section and learn to use the program without a mouse.

Reading
- See The Reading Guide page for stories with thematic links. You may want to study these in conjunction with the play.

- Visit the About Shakespeare site for help with reading the play. Keep the steps in mind as we read and view the play.

- Read this Biography of Shakespeare. What were Shakespeare's experiences with romantic love? How do you feel these experiences impacted his writing of A Midsummer Night's Dream?

- Have students use the Internet (see the links at the bottom of this page), books, articles, or journals and choose one critic's point of view about the play. Ask each student to analyse the criticism, determine the main ideas and key arguments, and write a brief summary of the article.

- Click here for a list of 'jump start' (see Bridging English, pp. 118 - 119) questions to aid personal responses to texts.

Speaking and Listening
- In groups prepare for a dramatic reading of the play. Other class members will use a rating scale to analyse how effectively you portrayed your character. Work with the class to determine what makes a good dramatic reading - view different productions of the play with the class to help generate ideas.

- Prepare for a debate. Topics would probably generate out of class discussions on different issues in the play... an easy choice would be to take two sides on the nature of romantic love. One team could defend the fact that Demetrius is left under Puck's spell at the end, while another team could protest it.

- Students should be engaged in active listening during group discussions, debates, and dramatic readings. Give students time to record their thoughts after group discussion.

- Perform a mock trial. Puck should be arrested for misuse of the love potion. Assign the roles of prosecutor (a character from the play?), defense attorney, judge, and jury. The prosecution and defense should come up with a list of witnesses they will call for examination.

Representing
- Design costumes for characters for a performance of the text. One group could design costumes they think would have been used in Shakespeare's time, while another group could design costumes to base the play in the 1970's.

- Create a simple set for a performance of a scene. Describe your rationale for your choices.

- Draw a picture to represent the relative heights of the people to the fairies. Compare your drawing with other members in the class.

- Use a web diagram to represent the love interests of Demetrius, Lysander, Hermia and Helena. While reading the play, draw new diagrams when these relationships change.

- Design a flyer that you would use if you were advertising your own production of the play. You want to make sure you get as many people to the performance as you can - how can your flyer help achieve your goal?

Viewing
- Teachers may want to consider bringing multiple versions of the play to watch in the classroom. Cue up scenes in the different versions and consider how they are the same and different. Consider the choices the directors made, and what may have influenced their choice.

- Go to Shakespeare Illustrated and view the paintings (or go here!). Make a slide show to bring to class, and discuss the use of light and dark, and how it helps the artist set the mood. Without showing the title of the picture, see if students can determine the characters from the play, and what scene the painting may be depicting.

- If you were choosing a cover for the text version of the play, which painting would you use?

- View The movie poster for A Midsummer Night's Dream. Can you tell the role each actor is playing? Do you know these actors from other movies or TV shows - does this give you any clues to who they may be playing?

- Surfing With the Bard has a production photo album that goes along with the play. Go here to see exactly where the pictures fit in with the text for this performance. What do you think of the costumes? Would you make the same choices for set and costume? Think about how you would stage the play, and write some ideas in your journal. Share your thoughts with your classmates in small groups.