Shakespeare Webquest

 

The Introduction

Everyone has heard of William Shakespeare, but what was it like to live in the days of yore? Take a trip in a time machine with three teammates and return to the world of William Shakespeare in order to learn about the time he lived and understand how he wrote his great works, where he got his ideas and how his plays were performed.

When you meet Mr. Shakespeare he is experiencing writer’s block -- you know, that’s when you get an assignment to write something for your English teacher and you sit down to write only you can’t think of anything. Well, in Shakespeare’s day a playwright had to write new plays all the time in order to keep audiences coming to his theater. In fact he wrote two great plays between 1599-1600 – As You Like It and Julius Caesar. When the four of you arrive in 1599, Shakespeare is in the midst of writing As You Like It, and he just can’t get the setting or the characters right. He has asked you to help him with information about life for different people of the times. He asks, “Who should I write about?  How do they dress? Where do they live? What does it smell like? What does it taste like? Woe is me!   I just can’t describe it anymore.”

He then suggests that you take a walk with him to his Globe Theatre (where most of his plays were performed beginning in 1599). At the theater he is going to give you each costumes and assign you a role to play so that you are able to fit in with the times in order to retrieve the most authentic information.

Use The Following Sites for your research

 

Oxford English Dictionary

http://www.elizabethan.org/

http://search.eb.com/shakespeare/study/

Nettrekker

http://school.nettrekker.com/frontdoor/

Encyclopedia Britannica

http://school.eb.com/

http://shakespeare.palomar.edu/

http://www.bardweb.net/

http://www.shakespeare.org.uk/

http://www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/clsc12.htm

http://www.online-literature.com/shakespeare/

http://www.stratford-upon-avon.co.uk/soawshst.htm

http://www.shakespeares-globe.org/

http://www.gprc.ab.ca/shakespeare/