A Midsummer Night's Dream | Mr. Lehmkuhl's GATE Class

A Globe Players production, starring you

Five things in the picture are hiding a secret. Click around and find them.

Psst. Down here. I am Puck, the trickiest sprite in the woods.

You just joined the Globe Players, the acting company of a writer named William Shakespeare. Tonight we are putting on his play about one very strange night in a forest.

Learn the story one scene at a time. I will be right beside you, causing only a little trouble.

Your place in the company

Every new player starts at the bottom. Finish scenes to move up.

0 of 10 scenes finished

Your save code

Do you have a code from another day or another computer? Type it here to get your finished scenes and cards back.

Secrets in the picture

Five things in the big picture at the top are hiding something. Each one you find puts a card in your Card Trunk.

0 of 5 secrets found

The play, in five acts

A play is split into big parts called acts. This one has five. Each ticket below is one scene for you to play through, in order.

Card Trunk

Every acting company keeps a trunk of costumes and props. Yours holds cards. Find secrets in the picture to fill the first five spots. Every scene you finish will add a new pack.

Scene packs

Finish a scene to open its pack. Each pack has five cards.

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THIS IS OPTIONAL

Should we rewrite the play?

You know the whole story now. So here is a question for your group. Does it have to end the way Shakespeare ended it?

People have been changing this play for more than four hundred years. They have moved it to new places, added songs, and written new endings. Now it is your turn.

Work in a group. Make the ending longer, or change part of the story. Then act out your new scene for the class. Costumes are welcome, but you do not need them.

Step 1: Watch the play in full

Here are all ten review videos, back to back, from the angry father to the goodbye from Puck. The whole play takes about twenty five minutes. Watch it together while you plan, and jump to any scene you want to see again.

Step 2: Pick your idea

Choose one of these, or think of your own.

What happens the morning after the three weddings?
Bottom tells his friends about his dream. Do they believe him?
What if Puck had put the flower juice on the right person the first time?
What if Bottom woke up and still had the head of a donkey?
What if Titania had never given up the little boy?
Egeus has to sit through the wedding. What does he say to Hermia afterward?
The Duke liked the play so much that he asks the workers for another one. What do they pick?
Puck finds one more purple flower. What does he do with it?

Step 3: Write your new scene

Type your plan in the boxes. Your words are saved on this computer while you type. When you are finished, press the gold button. It copies every box at once. Then paste it into a Google Doc, and share the doc with your teacher.

Our group First names of everyone in the group.

Our idea Are you making the ending longer, or changing part of the story? Say it in one or two sentences.

Where and when Where does your new scene happen? What time of day is it?

Characters and actors List each character and who will play the part. Example: Puck, played by Sam.

What happens first How does your scene begin?

What happens next What is the problem, the surprise, or the funny part?

How it ends What is the very last thing the audience sees?

Our script Write what each character says. Start each line with the name of the character, like this. PUCK: I have a better idea.

Props and costumes (optional) Anything simple works. A hat, a scarf, a paper crown.

Step 4: Act it out

Give every person in the group something to say or do.
Practice your scene at least two times before you show it.
Speak slowly and loudly, and face the people who are watching.
If someone forgets a line, keep going. The workers in the play would.
Costumes and props are optional. A hat or a scarf is plenty.
When you finish, take a bow.

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Teacher note

Enter the teacher code to open this note.

What this is. A stand-alone unit on A Midsummer Night's Dream. Students learn the story of the play through ten short scenes, and collect a few famous lines along the way. Nothing here depends on any other Shakespeare unit, so it can be taught first, second, or alone.

Where it is now. All ten scenes are built. Each one goes guess, game, lesson, review video, quiz, card pack.

Save codes. Progress is saved in the browser, so a reset or a different computer would wipe it. Each time a student finishes a scene, the last screen shows an 8 digit save code, and the same code is on this page under "Your save code". Typing that code into this page on any computer marks those scenes finished and puts their card packs back in the Card Trunk. The code only knows which scenes are finished. A student who stops halfway through a scene starts that one scene again. Hidden picture secrets are not in the code, since finding them again takes a minute. There is a printable save code card for students to write on. Codes are not tied to a student, so one student could share a code with another.

The two bonus tabs. "Rewrite the Play" and "His Own Words" stay locked until a student has finished all ten scenes on that computer. Both are optional and neither one is graded or tracked.

Rewrite the Play. Groups plan a longer ending or a changed story and act it out. Step 1 plays all ten review videos back to back, about twenty five minutes. It loads each scene page inside this page, so it only works on the website itself, with all ten scene files in the same folder as this page. It will show a 404 box if this page is opened by itself as a preview. Step 3 has nine text boxes that save on that computer as students type. "Copy every box" puts all nine on the clipboard with headings, and then tells students to paste it into a Google Doc and share the doc with you. On a shared computer, press "Erase every box" before the next group starts.

His Own Words. The whole play again as one long video in ten parts, about forty five minutes. It uses the same stage and characters as the review videos, but every line spoken is from Shakespeare, about 4,800 words, close to a third of the play. The lines were taken one by one from the Project Gutenberg text. They were cut and never rewritten. The only changes are spelling two names one way all through (Thisbe, Peaseblossom), a capital letter here and there, and tidying punctuation where a cut was made. The lines are read slowly in British voices, a woman's voice for the women and a man's for the men, with the speaker's name and the words on the screen. Parts play one after another, and the number buttons jump to any part.

What was left out of His Own Words. The part of the law that says Hermia could be put to death, the harsher insults in the forest quarrel, the word the play uses for a donkey, the jokes about a man playing a woman, the stabbings at the end of the workers' play, and the blessing on the couples' future children. The story still runs from start to finish without them.

Test tools. These change saved progress on this computer only. While the teacher code is entered, both bonus tabs are open on this computer, so press "Lock teacher tools" before a student sits down.