This 180-page EDITABLE unit has everything you'll need to deliver profoundly engaging lessons on William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The colorful workbooks will enable you to capture and hold the attention of modern-day students. The higher-order questions will help you pivot from reading comprehension to interpretive analysis and critical thinking. Deliver top-quality lessons while inspiring students to fall in love with Shakespeare's Hamlet!!

Every page in this teacher-friendly unit is fully editable! So you'll be able to customize the materials to suit the skill levels of your students — year after year! The unit also includes an answer key filled with insights from Shakespeare scholars at universities like Harvard and Cambridge. Your students will be reading like a professor!

Here's what you'll find in this editable 180-page complete unit:

• Introduction to Shakespeare's World: The 30-page introduction includes five handouts covering topics like Shakespeare's biography, the language of Renaissance England, the construction of the Globe Theater, how to recognize iambic pentameter, and more. Every handout is followed by a comprehension check, practice exercise, or quiz. You could spend up to a week with the introductory handouts — or skip them altogether. Answer keys included. (30 pages)

• STUDENT WORKBOOKS on Hamlet: The 50-page workbook features rigorous & highly engaging worksheets on every scene in Hamlet. Each worksheet is divided into sections which invite students to engage with the text in a variety of different ways:

• The Passage Analysis section invite students to analyze one or two key passages from each scene.
• The Evidence Hunt challenges students to answer an interpretive question by finding the best textual evidence to support their answer.
• The Comparing Quotations section invites students to make connections between quotations from different scenes in the play.
• The Discussion Question section features three higher-order questions designed to foster lively discussions and interpretive debates among students.
• The Quick Writes challenge students to compose short arguments that require the support of carefully selected textual evidence — leading to keen interpretive insights!

The worksheets are guaranteed to foster skills in close reading, thoughtful analysis, and lively discussion. They will have your students feeling genuinely excited to study Shakespeare every day! (50 pages)

• Workbook ANSWER KEYS: The 50-page answer key to the workbook provides detailed answers to the passage analysis, evidence hunt, and comparing quotations sections. The answer key is informed by the best books and articles written by leading Shakespeare scholars: Stephen Greenblatt (Harvard), Marjorie Garber (Harvard), Philip Fisher (Harvard), Coppélia Kahn (Brown), Dympna Callaghan (Syracuse), A. C. Bradley (Oxford), Frank Kermode (Cambridge), Michael Neill (Auckland), and many others. (50 pages)

• Figurative Language Quiz: The quiz challenges students to identify 8 types of figurative language — metaphor, simile, metonymy, paradox, oxymoron, personification, apostrophe, and hyperbole — used across 25 quotations from Hamlet. Also included is a glossary with definitions of the types of figurative language as well as examples of how they're used in the early scenes of Shakespeare's play — so you can begin reviewing the types of figurative language with students before they tackle the quiz. Answer key included. (5 pages)

• Analytical Writing Assignment: Challenge students to take their interpretations one step further by writing an analytical paper on Shakespeare's Hamlet. Let students choose from one of 5 thought-provoking sample topics — or invite them to develop a topic of their own. Writing schedule, outline template, and rubric included. (8 pages)

• Pacing Guide: The pacing guide provides suggestions about which scenes to assign for homework to make sure the nightly workload is manageable while each class session is maximally productive. (2 pages)

This unit is hot off the presses! It was created in 2024 and is informed by the most recent academic scholarship on Hamlet. While the colorful worksheets will make it highly engaging for all students, the unit was also designed to have more than enough rigor for Honors, IB, and AP Literature courses. What a great time to revitalize your approach to this complex play!

The entire 180-page unit will come to you in two separate formats: Microsoft Word *and* PDF. Because the Word docs are fully editable, you'll be able to customize them to the skill levels of your students — year after year. If you don't have Microsoft Word, you'll still be able to access the entire unit in PDF format — which is easy to navigate and quick to print.

Rigorous Resources is your one-stop shop for top-quality units on canonical literary texts by diverse authors. Inspire students to arrive at a whole new depth of insight while falling in love with Shakespeare!

Happy teaching!

Adam Jernigan, Ph.D.

adamjernigan@gmail.com

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Feel free to check out these complete units on Shakespeare's masterpieces:

COMPLETE UNIT with Workbooks on Romeo and Juliet

COMPLETE UNIT with Workbooks on Julius Caesar

COMPLETE UNIT with Workbooks on Macbeth

COMPLETE UNIT with Workbooks on Othello

COMPLETE UNIT with Workbooks on Hamlet

COMPLETE UNIT with Workbooks on Much Ado About Nothing

INTRO TO SHAKESPEARE: Biography, Globe Theater, Language, & Meter