Kill Shakespeare Secret Diaries

As we have mentioned we really get jazzed when we find out that teachers and students are using Kill Shakespeare as a way to explore the Bard.One of our fave teachers is Deborah Altenbeck who teaches at an institute for gifted children in Essen, Germany.  Deborah has been teaching Kill Shakespeare as part of one of her courses.Deborah has generated several cool lesson plans and walked the students through the first few issues of the series.One of the homework assignments she gave to her class was to take a Kill Shakespeare character and write a "secret" diary for them. The results were a lot of fun and Deborah shared some of them with us and we wanted to pass them on to you.So here you go - this first entry is from Richard III's POV and is done by Luise (and remember English is the second, third or fourth language for these students).Dear diary,We’re gonna stop Shakespeare. He is an evil guy, I know that. And with Hamlet’s help we’re gonna kill him. I hate that Shakespeare guy so much! I also need Lady Macbeth. She’s somehow creepy and seems clever although she’s just a woman. I think I have to be careful with her. Everybody knows what she’d done to her husband. Some even say she killed the English king… If she killed a king once, she can kill one a second time.  But I’m much cleverer than her. I mean she’s just a woman!The Syna wrote this diary from Lady M's perspective:Today, everything was just perfect! I persuaded my friendly and thankfully not very intelligent partner to accomplish my plan! I hope he won’t be too awkward, but hopefully, he will appreciate what I want him to do… But all in all, my plan is really delightful – it is just perfect! I really take pride in myself! One day, everything will be wonderful!And finally Jonathan got into the act, also as Richard:Dear diary, Today Hamlet finally got to my land. Yesterday, the stars shone in very strange colors and I hoped that it would mean that the prophecy will be fulfilled. This morning I found the Shadow King, Hamlet, at the beach. I'm very glad that now the prophecy will be fulfilled by him. The only thing I'm depressed about is that Hamlet doesn't want to hear anything about this prophecy and the fact that only he himself can kill Shakespeare. Yours, RichardFor our teacher friends Deborah has shared three of her lesson plans -- given that English is not her students first language I think that the content is probably appropriate for junior high school students. If you are interested let us know as we'd love to share these with you and spread ideas of how you can teach Shakespeare, and Kill Shakespeare, in fun ways.And as always we love to hear how teachers are teaching the Bard in their own classes.All the best,Conor and Anthony

Ve are big in Chermany!

(Deborah forgive me for my teasing...)So, one of the best things about Kill Shakespeare, to me at least, is knowing that teachers and educators are finding it interesting.So it was with GREAT excitement that I saw this e-mail in my inbox the other day. It was from Deborah Altenbeck a German graduate student who is a BIG fan of Kill Shakespeare. She had been hoping to do a paper on us and wrote to me to provide an update.The e-mail started off a LITTLE depressingly:I apologize for not keeping in touch. I was very busy doing my final exams and my final paper for the university. But I'm through with everything now. Unfortunately I couldn't write one of my research papers on Kill Shakespeare as I've originally planned, but I was forced to write it on a different topic. Crap.So much for our inaugural German language paper. But as I read the e-mail I realized what Deborah HAD done was way, WAY, cooler.However, I am still working for the Institution for gifted children and still teach the Shakespeare course and I thought I should let you know what we're doing... ...A few lessons ago we finally started on the Comics Section. I assigned the various main characters from Kill Shakespeare to individual students and they made posters, researching information on:1. which play they are from2. their alignment (good ----- bad)3. a description4. a strength5. a weakness6. 5 adjectives to describe the character7. family tree8. a famous quotation9. pictures from the internetand I provided them with character artwork that I found on your website.When we were all finished, posters were presented to the group so that everyone knew each character. I attached some photos of the results. So I wanted to share with you, our fans, some of those photos so you can see how Kill Shakespeare is being used to help kids get into the Bard in a whole different way.As you can imagine this makes Anthony, Andy and I enormously proud of our work and it is something special to think that our little comic has made it across the sea.Going forward Deborah says she plans to read the whole series to her class and hope to put together a teaching guide for Kill Shakespeare.So a big Danke to Deborah. You have made our week.Conor

PS: The second coolest thing about her Shakespeare unit besides the fact it used Kill Shakespeare? The fact that she had the students do in-character job interviews. Can you imagine Hamlethaving to try to land a gig as an air-traffic controller?Interviewer: "So, Mr. Hamlet. Can you provide me some examples of times when you were under a great deal of pressure and we're able to make snap decisions?"Hamlet: ....Interviewer: Mr. Hamlet?Hamlet:...Interviewer: Mr. Hamlet, are you awake?Hamlet:...Interviewer: Mr. Hamlet!Hamlet ... yes.Interviewer: Well then, can you answer me the question, please. Can you think of an example of when you successfully made a quick decision?Hamlet: ...Hamlet:...Hamlet:....  Maybe?