Essays

You will find below a link to the essays already published in Goodreads.

Do take the time to stop by and read them, and if you do, leave a comment. You will be surprised by the wide range of approaches.

If your essay is not finished, try to complete your work soon. If I told you it was ready and your name is not included, let me know as soon as you publish your essay so as to add it.

Agustina

Andrea

Clarisa

Florencia B.

Florencia F.

Guillermina

Julieta

Lucía

Mailén

Melisa

María Laura

Paula  O

Paula R.

Romina

Silvina

Tatiana

From Shakespeare to the Absurd

Watch this clip from the film version of Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead

 What differences can you find with Hamlet?

Can you find any similarities with this clip?

Shakespeare's contemporary quotes

Shakespeare round-up

Watch this panel discussion held earlier this year in Germany, organised by the British Council.

What ideas do you find most striking? Why? Do they make you reconsider the conclusions in your digital posters? 

Make a very brief comment in the Padlet below (please indicate your name). Just double click and start writing. It's probably better to click on the link and open the poster in a new tab.

Created with Padlet

Finally, think back on the digital posters and presentations and the activity above. Would you say this has been a meaningful learning experience? What would you change to improve it?

Post a comment in this Padlet. It's probably better to click on the link and open the poster in a new tab.

Created with Padlet

Shakespeare, our contemporary?

Through our glog we aimed to represent visually how Shakespeare is present in our everyday lives. The English language owes a lot to him as tons of words were put into use because of their appearance in his plays - some of them being borrowings and others his own creation. We use the English language on a daily basis without realising that much of what we are saying is due to his brilliance. Even some proverbs and entire phrases or part of his soliloquys are employed as part of our everyday speech. Besides, there are plenty of songs based on his masterpieces; and appart from that, a large number of films have been made out of his plays or taking some aspects of them. Shakespeare is also present worldwide in places such as Stratford-upon-Avon, where his own house as well as his wife's cottage are open to the public as tourist attractions, and Verona where you can find Juliet's balcony and where couples from all over the world go to make their vows and promise eternal love as Romeo and Juliet do in the play. What makes Shakespeare our contemporary is the universality of the themes and values he depicts in his plays: love in all its forms, lust, appearance and reality, ambition, loyalty, order and disorder, identity, death and illness, good and evil, among others. It is impossible not to feel identified with some of his characters; and this is where his genius lies: he gave his characters and plays in general a universal appeal. ROMINA, AILÍN AND MELISA.

Shakespeare, the Bard of England!

SHAKESPEARE, THE BARD OF ENGLAND!

As most of us in our class, we wanted to show that as Ben Jonson (1572-1637) once said `Shakespeare was not of an age but for all time’. We concentrated on whether we should deal or not with Shakespeare’s works in the classroom. We found two main reasons. On the one hand, we believe that Shakespeare is still popular and famous since his stories are universally constant what means that they appeal to us despite the many years that separate us from him. With our glogster, we proved that Shakespeare is still present everywhere both in our daily lives and in fiction, as Disney’s movies depict. On the other hand,Shakespeare has created a lot of the English we use today. Even though, sometimes even we are not aware of that he has contributed a lot of new words and phrases to the English language.Finally, as a conclusion we chose to add a video which explains in a more academic language why and how we should work with Shakespeare’s works. We hope you enjoy it! Florencia and Julieta.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aA9TpJquRA

Is Shakespeare Our Contemporary? By Mailen & Paula

Based on major global interpersonal and intrapersonal conflicts, Shakespeare’s plays and poems constitute a valuable source of input for modern worldwide film industries. Universal, appealing and relevant to human beings, the central themes – sorrow, loyalty, revelry, love, treason, death and fate – underlying the Bard’s works are still consumed by 21st century audiences. Our craving for well developed and tragic plots clearly reveals Shakespeare’s immortality. Beyond doubt, the bard is our faithful contemporary.

Shakespeare Presentation

Here is our Prezi presentation! We wanted to highlight that in spite of being dead for 450 years Shakespeare's still our contemporary... Even when his writing style is complex, the Magazine shows students' engagement with his plays. Apart from that concrete proof that after 450 years he's still alive, we included a useful site that can make our reading pleasant or at least manageable. Hope you enjoy the Prezi and find it useful! Tatiana, Lucia & Paula

Presentation "Long Live the Bard"

In my presentation I wanted to prove that Shakespeare has enduring appeal and that his influence goes beyond literature. Therefore, I looked for some pictures and videos that show William and his extraordinary work are part of our ordinary life.

In this post you can see the poster I've used to present my talk. I will include the link to Glogster and, since my Edu Glogster is about to expire; I will include the links for the websites I mentioned: 

Glogster: http://clarisaf.edu.glogster.com/long-live-the-bard

Adds: http://transmedialshakespeare.wordpress.com/2011/03/15/shakespeare-in-advertising-2/

Songs: http://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/lists/2012/04/10-great-shakespeare-inspired-songs.html

Video: http://youtu.be/0mlulJ7hrHY

Hope you enjoy it!

4 Shakespeare plays on screen (by Andrea Sánchez and Ma.Laura Straface)

The rationale behind our digital poster is to prove that Shakespeare is still contemporary. He is alive in popular culture even nowadays. So as to show this idea, we’ve decided to work with different films.

We’ve chosen 4 plays and we’ve concentrated on different movie scenes related to each play. We’ve also added some modern movie scenes that have been inspired by Shakespeare. Overall, it seems to us that Shakespeare’s themes will never be outdated that’s why we can still find so many modern movies that include  Shakespeare’s themes, plots, dialogues, etc. 

It’s also worth mentioning that in the case of Hamlet, we have chosen different relevant scenes from each film version and we’ve joined them together into one single video in order to show a clear comparison among them. 

http://www.glogster.com/andysanders/4-shakespeare-s-plays-on-screen/g-6k102k4hm006u0t89l2s7is

If you want to watch the videos just click on the link below the image. Once there, scroll to the bottom of the poster and change to HTML5 view (videos load faster in this way)

The Sun celebrates

From The Guardian

The Sun has published one of its best educational spreads today to mark the 450th anniversary of William Shakespeare's birthday: "Happy Bard Day".
It was written by the paper's managing editor (and former Press Complaints Commission director), Stig Abell, who recently spent his tube journeys to work each day reading every one of Shakespeare's plays.
His knowledge has paid off. The pages contain summaries of all 37 plays plus some amusing spoof front pages created by John Perry, the man responsible for the paper's take on history, Hold Ye Front Page (see here and here).
Arguably the best of them is the one about Hamlet: "Massacre at the palace: Claudius killed, Queen poisoned. Hamlet and Laertes dead too." The pay-off is a gem: "Alas poor Yorick - skull found."
Missing from the spread, however, is that famous opening line to a verse in Cymbeline: "Fear no more the heat o' the Sun".
It would have been an apt comment on the paper's less hard-edged approach to the world of late.

Follow Mariel Amez's board The Sun Celebrates on Pinterest.

The Royal Shakespeare Company celebrated with fireworks

#Cakespeare

Other ways of celebrating Shakespeare's Birthday!

The V&A wants to celebrate the big day with a fabulous birthday cake. We would like you to design, make and decorate a cake inspired by the Bard. We need to you to muster all of your culinary and design skills to come up with a fairy cake fit for Titania, or a sinfully decadent cream cake that would make Falstaff swoon. Upload your entries to Twitter or Instagram using the hashtag #Cakespeare. The winner will be announced on 7 May.

Watch out for the results!

Follow Victoria and Albert Museum's board #Cakespeare on Pinterest.

Shakespeare's birthday

2014 marks the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth. But if we are only as old as we feel, can we say that Shakespeare is old?

You will find below a list of resources. They include audio, video, images and text. Take your time to explore them.

Then, in groups of 2 or 3, design a digital poster in which you bring together some items that you find particularly meaningful, on the theme "Is Shakespeare our contemporary?". Prepare a short speech (five minutes) in which you account for your choices and final design.
(Some options for a digital poster are Glogster, Tackk and Mural.ly. See some tutorials in Spanish. But of course you can choose another tool.)


Open Source Shakespeare attempts to be the best free Web site containing Shakespeare's complete works. It is intended for scholars, thespians, and Shakespeare lovers of every kind. OSS includes the 1864 Globe Edition of the complete works, which was the definitive single-volume Shakespeare edition for over a half-century.

Approaching Shakespeare  (Podcasts) Each lecture in this series focuses on a single play by Shakespeare, and employs a range of different approaches to try to understand a central critical question about it.

Royal Shakespeare Company resources

Shakespeare in 100 Objects

Shakespeare and Music

Shakespeare’s Villains

Words Shakespeare Invented

Shakespeare: A Worldwide Classroom

Global Shakespeares Video & Performance Archive a collaborative project providing online access to performances of Shakespeare from many parts of the world as well as essays and metadata by scholars and educators in the field.
Shakespeare in American Life Includes lesson plans, podcasts, videos and articles.

Earlier this year the British Council Germany held  a seminar entitled "Shakespeare - Our Contemporary?". See a brief summary below. If you are interested, you can watch all - or some of - the lectures