HOME STUDY-ENGLISH

Spend approximately 40 minutes per day working through the activities in this booklet.

You should try to spend at least 20 minutes per day reading something of your own choice

You do not need to print the booklet out but you might want to use paper to record your responses.

You should work through the activities in the order they appear in the booklet.

Extension Tasks: A few things you may enjoy doing if you have time.

Monday 1. Vocabulary (5 minutes per day)2. Read Text One – A Midsummer Night’s Dream Synopsis

Tuesday 1. Vocabulary (5 minutes per day)2. Develop your knowledge – Develop your understanding of the plot and

characters3. Check your understanding- Test Yourself

Wednesday 1. Vocabulary (5 Minutes per day)2. Extended Response 1: Complete this task to demonstrate your

understanding and return to your teacher via email for feedback.

Thursday 1. Vocabulary (5 minutes per day)2. Read Text Two – The Tempest3. Close Reading – Develop your understanding of the ideas presented in

the text

Friday 1. Vocabulary (5 Minutes per day)2. Skills development – Focus on writing. 3. Extended Response 2: Complete this task to demonstrate your

understanding and return to your teacher via email for feedback.

HOME STUDY-ENGLISHFOCUS ON VOCABULARY

Word Definition

chaos great confusion, disorder

enchantment a magical spell or charm

wrathful fiercely angry

unrequited not returned

troupe a company or group--usually theatrical performers

enslaved made into slavery and treated as property

conjure to summon or bring into being as if by magic

tormented experiencing intense pain especially mental pain

illusion a false impression

repentant feeling or expressing remorse for misdeeds

TASK: Use LOOK, COVER, WRITE, CHECK to learn the following definitions.

To further revise and test your knowledge of the key vocabulary you might want to give Quizlet a go. Use the link below to join the Year 8 Quizlet class:

Step into Shakespeare: Shakespeare’s plays

Can you unscramble the titles of some of Shakespeare’s most famous plays?

ROEMO AND TEJULI

IGKN REAL

MTCBAEH

ALTEMH

THE SPEEMTT

A RSTENWI AELT

A MMUEMIDRS THNISG ERDAM

English Home Study

LEARNING FOCUS- Developing your knowledge

and understanding of Shakespeare’s writing.

Step into Shakespeare- Magic and mayhem

This week you are going to explore the representation of the characters in two of Shakespeare’s most famous plays:

A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

The Tempest

Build your knowledge: MAGIC IN MIDSUMMER

Task one: Carefully read the synopsis of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream

SYNOPSIS

A story of order and disorder, reality and appearance and love and marriage. Theseus, Duke of Athens, and Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons are to be married and great celebrations are planned.

INTO THE FORESTEgeus brings his rebellious daughter Hermia in front of the Duke. Egeus wants her to marry Demetrius but Hermia refuses, because she's in love with Lysander. The Duke orders Hermia to obey her father or, according to Athenian law, she must face a death penalty or enter a convent.

Hermia and Lysander decide to elope that night. They confide in their friend Helena. However, she's secretly in love with Demetrius so, hoping to win his affection, she tells him of Hermia's plan. That night, all four lovers set out into the forest.Meanwhile, a group of Athenian tradesmen (known as the Mechanicals), led by Peter Quince, are planning to perform a play in celebration of the Duke's wedding. They rehearse The Tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe in the same forest.

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

Elsewhere in the forest, the fairy king and queen, Oberon and Titania, argue over Titania's refusal to give up her page-boy to Oberon. He sends his servant Puck to find a magic plant to cast a spell on Titania.

The juice of the plant, when squeezed onto the eyes of someone asleep, causes them to fall in love with the first creature they see when they wake up. Oberon uses the juice on Titania as she sleeps in her bower.

Puck overhears the tradesmen rehearsing and magically transforms Bottom's head into that of an ass. The other men are terrified and flee the forest. When Titania wakes, the first creature she sees is Bottom and she falls rapturously in love with him.Helena chases Demetrius in the forest and their fighting disturbs Oberon. He tells Puck to use the magic plant on Demetrius too, so that he will fall in love with Helena. However Puck muddles up the two Athenian men and uses it on Lysander instead, who promptly falls in love with Helena. Both women are confused and Hermia furiously attacks her friend.

Build your knowledge: MAGIC IN MIDSUMMER

Eventually, Oberon lifts all the enchantments and puts the humans to sleep. Titania is horrified that she's been enamoured of an ass and is reconciled with Oberon. On waking, the lovers decide the night's events must have all been a dream. Lysander and Hermia are back to normal, and Demetrius admits he does love Helena after all. Bottom wakes up and recounts his 'strange dream’.

The wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta becomes a triple celebration as the other human couples marry too. Quince and Bottom's troupe amuses the couples with their amateur performance of the play.

As the couples retire, Oberon, Titania and the fairies perform a blessing, and Puck asks the audience to applaud if they enjoyed the performance.

BRAIN DUMP

Task two: Write down everything you can remember about the plot of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’

Build your knowledge: Exploring characters

Task three: Carefully read the descriptions of the characters mostly associated with the use of magic in the play.

OberonThe king of the fairies, Oberon is initially at odds with his wife, Titania, because she refuses to relinquish control of a young Indian prince whom he wants for a knight. Oberon’s desire for revenge on Titania leads him to send Puck to obtain the love-potion flower that creates so much of the play’s confusion and farce.

TitaniaThe beautiful queen of the fairies, Titania resists the attempts of her husband, Oberon, to make a knight of the young Indian prince that she has been given. Titania’s brief, potion-induced love for Nick Bottom, whose head Puck has transformed into that of an ass, yields the play’s foremost example of the contrast motif.

Puck

Also known as Robin Goodfellow, Puck is Oberon’s jester, a mischievous fairy who delights in playing pranks on mortals. Though A Midsummer Night’s Dream divides its action between several groups of characters, Puck is the closest thing the play has to a protagonist. He is an enchanting and mischievous spirit and his antics are responsible for many of the complications that propel the other main plots: he mistakes the young Athenians, applying the love potion to Lysander instead of Demetrius, thereby causing chaos within the group of young lovers; he also transforms Bottom’s head into that of an ass.

Test your knowledge: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

Task four: Respond to the following questions to test your understanding. How many can you answer without looking back at the text? (10 minutes)

1. Who is Theseus?

2. Who has a rebellious daughter?

3. Who is in love with Lysander at the start of the play?

4. Who is in love with Demetrius at the start of the play?

5. Which couple plan to elope?

6. Who wants to cast a spell on Titania?

7. What play is rehearsed in the forest by the ‘Mechanicals’?

8. Who mistakes Demetrius for Lysander?

Close reading: Zoom in on character

Task five: Look carefully at the following key scene: Act 2 Scene 1 -Oberon and Puck's Flower Plot and annotate your response to the guiding questions.

In this scene, Oberon decides to play a trick on Titania by putting a love potion on her eyes that will make her fall in love with the first living thing she sees after waking. Here, he describes Titania’s location to Puck before asking him to find Demetrius.

Oberon

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,

Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,

Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,

With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:

There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,

Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight:

And with the juice of this I’ll streak her eyes,

And make her full of hateful fantasies.

(Gives him some juice) Take thou some of it, and

seek through this grove;

A sweet Athenian lady is in love

With a disdainful youth: anoint his eyes,

But do it when the next thing he espies

May be the lady. Thou shalt know the man

By the Athenian garments he hath on.

Effect it with some care, that he may prove

More fond on her than she upon her love;

And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.

Robin(Puck)

Fear not, my lord, your servant shall do so.

How does Oberon plan to get revenge on Titania?

What do the adjectives ‘sweet’ and ‘disdainful’ suggest about his view of Helena and Demetrius?

What does he want the potion to achieve?

Puck only speaks one line. What do you think this shows about the balance of power between Oberon and Puck?

Close reading: Zoom in on character

Task five: Based on your understanding of the key extract from Act 2 Scene 1, think about what you understand about the character of Oberon.

For each word used to describe him write down evidence that you could use to support thinking of Oberon’s character in this way.

Wrathful

Kind

Powerful

Extended Response 1

BECAUSE…BUT….SO…. For

Because – introduces an explanation or reason for your thinking

But – introduces a contrasting idea.

So – introduces a consequence (resulting action)

What do we learn about Oberon from Act 2 Scene 1?

Complete the following sentence stems to demonstrate your understanding

Oberon is shown to be powerful and wrathful because…

Oberon is shown to be powerful and wrathful but...

Oberon is shown to be powerful and wrathful so….

*This is an extended piece so can be returned to your teacher for feedback.

Text Focus – The Tempest

Task one: Carefully read the synopsis of ‘The Tempest.’

SYNOPSIS

Close reading: Understanding the plot.

Task two: Answer the following questions carefully to demonstrate your understanding of the main events.

1. How do we know the crew are incapable of looking after the ship properly?

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2. Why might Miranda be more scared and shocked by the vision of the ship sinking?

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3. Who is Caliban?

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4. What request does Ariel make for helping Prospero conjure the storm?

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5. Why was Prospero’s brother Antonio able to steal power from him when he was

Duke of Milan?

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6. Why did Prospero enslave Caliban?

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Close reading: Understanding the plot.

Task two: Answer the following questions carefully to demonstrate your understanding of the main events.

6. What does Caliban convince Stephano and Trinculo to do?

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6. How does Prospero test Ferdinand’s love for Miranda?

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7. How does Prospero show forgiveness at the end of the play?

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8. What does Prospero give up at the end of the play?

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BIG THINKING.

‘Now my charms are all o'erthrown,

And what strength I have’s mine own,Which is most faint’

The Tempest is believed to be Shakespeare’s final play. How can we link this to the representation of Prospero at the end of the play?

Close reading: Understanding character relationships.

Task three: In this activity you are going to explore the relationship between the central character Prospero and his helper sprite ‘Ariel. and the enslaved ‘Caliban.’

Look at the following quotations spoken by Prospero about Ariel or Caliban.

What contrasts can you identify in the way he speaks to the two characters?Annotate the quotes with your ideas.

My brave spirit! Ariel

‘a freckled whelp, hag-born -not honoured with a human shape"- (Prospero speaking about Caliban)

Close reading: Caliban’s Island

Task four: This speech is Caliban’s explanation to Stephano and Trinculo of mysterious music that they hear by magic.

Read the speech carefully.

What impression of the island does Shakespeare create?

Look at each of the quotations below. Write down what each one implies to the audience.

Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.Sometimes a thousand twangling instrumentsWill hum about mine ears, and sometime voicesThat, if I then had waked after long sleepWill make me sleep again; and then in dreamingThe clouds methought would open and show richesReady to drop upon me, that when I wakedI cried to dream again

The isle is full of noises, Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not

Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments will hum about mine ears

Focus on writing: Creating expanded noun phrases.

Task five: Create noun phrases that could be used to describe the setting in the image below.

What is an expanded noun phrase?

Expanded noun phrases tell us more about the nouns in a sentence.

‘The lake’ becomes ‘The beautiful lake’

Extended Response 2 – Developing description

EXTENDED TASK: Imagine you are one of the characters from the boat shipwrecked at the start of ‘The Tempest’

Choose to write either a poem or a piece of prose to describe your first impressions of the island.

Things to consider:

• The island is possibly enchanted• The island is largely untouched by humans

Focus on skills:

• Use expanded noun phrases.• Use a range of imaginative vocabulary.• Use a range of different sentence types.• Start sentences in different ways.• Use similes and metaphors .

*This is an extended piece so can be returned to your teacher for feedback.

Extension Tasks

1. Create a story board for either ‘A Midsummer Night’s

Dream’ or ‘The Tempest’

2. Design and label costumes for some of the key

characters you have been introduced to.

3. Design a theatre poster for either play.

4. Visit the Royal Shakespeare Company at www.rsc.co.uk to find out more about the two plays

you have explored.