Homeschooling With Movies: Using Hitchcock to Teach Literature
A combination of watchability and intelligence make Hitchcock a great starting point for serious cinema studies — and for applying critical reading techniques to a text that isn’t a book.
When Vertigo premiered 60 years ago this May, Alfred Hitchcock cemented his reputation as one of the 20th century’s great filmmakers. This spring is an ideal time to explore his work with its complex themes of control, identity, and connection.
So many of the things we take for granted in the world of cinema comes from obsessive auteur Alfred Hitchcock: those stomach-twistingly abrupt edits, the unadulterated pleasure of voyeuristic shots, the camera that roves dreamily but inevitably through the landscape, and that eyeline match that pulls the object of desire directly into your gaze. Hitchcock was notoriously difficult: His complex, controlling treatment of women, his micro-focus on every detail, his puppetmaster management of scenes and characters — all of these find their way into his films. But Hitchcock wasn’t just a cinematic genius. His movies also had tremendous popular appeal, spurring film critic Andrew Sarris to say, wryly, that “Hitchcock's reputation has suffered from the fact that he has given audiences more pleasure than is permissible for serious cinema.” That combination of watchability and intelligence make Hitchcock a great starting point for serious cinema studies.
WATCH REAR WINDOW and Talk about the Elements of Suspense.
The film’s protagonist Jeff is stuck in his apartment in a cast, so we’re stuck with him in his claustrophobic housebound perspective. Notice how Hitchcock slowly builds the tension — first, our curiosity is piqued as we watch Jeff ’s neighbor-across- the-way’s suspicious behavior. Then, curiosity turns to fear when we, with Jeff, watch his girlfriend search the apartment. We know, with Jeff, that the man is on his way back, but like Jeff, we’re powerless to warn Lisa. All that suspense builds to a fever pitch after Jeff loses sight of the man and we realize that the villain is coming after chair-bound Jeff. The genius of these scenes lies in Hitchcock’s focus on the narrow perspective of the protagonist: Like Jeff, we’re voyeurs who see more than we bargained for. Hitchcock manipulates us into complicity with Jeff ’s voyeurism — and by extension, his peril. Jeff is our cinematic stand-in — we’re not sure whether he’s imagining a murder to entertain himself or whether he’s truly witnessed something terrible, but that’s because we’re not certain of our own intentions.
Watch NORTH BY NORTHWEST and Talk About Setting the Scene.
One of the most visceral cinematic moments in North by Northwest comes in the middle of nowhere. Cary Grant’s suave businessman finds himself in the middle of a midwestern cornfield, a stark contrast to the busy city where his story begins. There, people and cars are so commonplace that no one notices them, but pay attention to how this changes once the bus drops him at this lonely out- post: Suddenly every car becomes imbued with meaning, promising danger or hope. With the protagonist, we’re screening the long, flat landscape for lurking danger, and like the protagonist, we’re shocked when it appears from the place we least suspect.
Watch VERTIGO and Talk about Psychology as Plot.
Casting Everyman Jimmy Stewart as the lead in Vertigo was a brilliant ploy on Hitchcock’s part: As soon as we see Stewart’s craggy, earnest face, we know we’re looking at the moral center of the movie. This is the guy we’ll cast our lot with. Except, in Vertigo, we’re wrong. We’re expecting Scotty to repair the damage he did at the beginning of the film when his acrophobia caused another police officer’s death or to somehow save the doomed woman whose suicide he couldn’t prevent. Instead, he spirals (just as the movie’s name suggests) further and further into twistier and twistier obsessions. Notice how Stewart’s psychology drives the plot, his obsessions echoing the role of director as he casts, trains, and observes his ice-blond leading lady — just like Hitchcock himself. The film is both a sly nod to Hitchcock’s reputation and a study in obsessive psychology.
Watch PSYCHO and Talk about Surprising the Audience.
Hitchcock’s version of a horror flick changed movies forever. Though countless other movies have followed its unpredictable twists and harrowing notion of purposeless evil, when Hitchcock (spoiler) sent his leading lady to her doom halfway through a perfectly plotted storytelling session, he shook not just the audience but the entire notion of cinematic narrative. Once the main character dies, the audience has no idea what might happen next. The whole idea of a story with a beginning, middle, and end is disrupted when Janet Leigh dies and the movie continues on without her. It’s a sudden, vicious transition that keeps us unsettled for the rest of the film. The film’s double twist, when (spoiler again) the monster is revealed, looking nothing like a Mr. Hyde or Frankenstein’s Monster but surprisingly like any one of us, is as unexpected as everything else—but also surprisingly right. In the post-World War II world, the notion that evil was not an outside force but a force within us is both shocking and utterly appropriate.
Want more? Hitchcock has inspired filmmakers for decades, but these modern movies really channel his spirit.
Source Code (2011): Jake Gyllenhaal stars in this twisty North by Northwest-ish thriller about a man whose
consciousness travels back in time with eight minutes to stop a deadly accident.
Shutter Island (2010): This noir-ish movie captures Hitchcock’s uneasy realities — right down to the (spoilers) twist ending.
Frantic (1988): Harrison Ford stars as a man whose wife disappears from their Paris hotel room after she accidentally picks up the wrong suitcase at the airport.
High Anxiety (1977): Hitchcock himself loved Mel Brooks’ spoof of his trademark style, jam-packed with wink-wink homages to Hitchcock’s best known films and featuring a theme song worth the price of admission all by itself.
The Spanish Prisoner (1997) David Mamet’s witty, fast-talking movie about corporate espionage owes a huge debt to Hitchcock’s unpredictable narrative twists and turns.
5 Great Poems by Living Poets to Inspire Your High School Poetry Studies
These are the poems that my high school literature students couldn’t stop talking about.
These are the poems that my literature students couldn’t stop talking about.
Students often come into literature classes thinking they hate poetry, but what they really hate is the distance they feel between themselves and “classic poetry.” Sure, you can luck into poems like “The Raven” that feel timeless from the start, but for most people, poetry only becomes interesting when it’s personal, when you personally connect with what you’re reading. And while building your critical reading skills makes any poem fair game for this kind of connection, the process is a lot smoother — and more fun! — if you start with poetry that taps into modern life. That’s why I always try to start poetry classes with living poets. Students are surprised by allusions that they recognize from their own lives, appreciative of relaxed language and syntax, and primed to tackle poetry classics with an energy and curiosity that translates to enjoyment. These are the five poems that always seem to get the process started on the right foot.
I Invite My Parents to a Dinner Party BY CHEN CHEN
It hooked them with the Home Alone references, but students really connected with the awkwardness between parents and children trying to bridge the generation gap with love. “This is exactly the kind of stuff that runs through my head when my parents hang out with my friends,” one student said. “I didn't know that was poetry.”
Self-Portrait With No Flag BY SAFIA ELHILLO
My students loved this free-wheeling take on the pledge of allegiance, which inspired them to think about things that anchor their own lives. Drawing connections to everything from the Declaration of Independence to Immanuel Kant, students for the first time actually suggested writing their own poetic pledges. How cool is that?
Playground Elegy BY CLINT SMITH
My class is passionate about social justice, and this slowly unfolding poem about all the things raised arms can mean — from freedom to death — hit them hard. One student texted me on quarantine that her friend was afraid to wear a mask in public because he might be mistaken for a criminal, and she was reminded of this poem. It’s a privilege-shaker in all the best ways.
Ego Tripping (there may be a reason why) BY NIKKI GIOVANNI
As much as the poem itself, I think it was Giovanni’s performance of it that inspired my students — we were lucky enough to get to see her read in person last winter. But even without Giovanni’s sassy-tender reading, the poem’s self-celebrating, feminist retelling of human history is a joyful discovery.
Instructions for Not Giving Up BY ADA LIMÓN
One of the hardest things about studying U.S. history with teenagers is how disappointed they are in the United States. Many of them are seeing for the first time how the big, wonderful ideas of the Declaration and Constitution crumble away if you’re not fortunate enough to be a privileged white male. We hit a point, usually around the civil rights movement, when it just hurts too much — and that’s when I pull out this glorious celebration of hope. Limón’s view of the past as a jumping off point and not a destiny is essentially empowering, just what you need to remind you that every generation has a chance to reinvent the world for the better.
The Hero’s Journey: A Book and Movie List
The hero’s journey is so prevalent in film and books that it makes a great jumping off point for a comparative literature study, and these texts are a great place to begin.
Joseph Campbell’s take on the Hero’s Journey is maybe a little sexist (skip to the end for a different version), but it is reflected in centuries of great storytelling. The hero’s journey is so prevalent in film and books that it makes a great jumping off point for a comparative literature study, and these texts are a great place to begin.
You don’t have to be familiar with the hero’s journey to appreciate epics like the Odyssey and Beowulf, but the hero’s journey does provide a surprisingly useful framework for exploring classic Western literature. (Even Bluey uses it!) Sometimes, it can be just as interesting to look at the ways a text DOESN’T line up with the traditional hero’s journey — there’s a lot of conversation in the counterargument.
MOBY DICK
Ishmael signs on for a three-year journey on the whaling ship Pequod, entering Campbell’s belly of the whale as he cuts himself off from the known world to pursue a literal white whale through the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans.
JANE EYRE
When she leaves her beloved Mr. Rochester and Thornfield Hall, Jane enters the English countryside equivalent of the Underworld: penniless, friendless, and fraught with trials and temptations.
THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN
Jim — with his combination of river knowledge and complex commitment to superstition — serves the role of Huck’s wise companion on their journey down the Mississippi River.
DUNE
Frank Herbert takes a subversive approach to the hero’s journey, following its patterns but raising questions about the nature and value of heroes. “The bottom line of the Dune trilogy is: beware of heroes. Much better to rely on your own judgment, and your own mistakes,” said Herbert.
THE MATRIX
Morpheus stands in for the father in Neo’s journey into the real world, and Neo can’t achieve full consciousness to fulfill his destiny until he understands his father’s teachings.
THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ
A tornado sweeps Dorothy across the threshold and into the land of Oz, where she must follow a literal Road of Trials (paved in yellow brick) to complete her hero’s journey.
Like Odysseus, on whom he’s based, Ulysses Everett McGill can only end his journey when he’s reunited with his family and his home is restored.
LABYRINTH
This fantasy twists traditional gender roles as a teenage girl takes up the hero mantle and is tempted by a Goblin King — played by David Bowie, which makes it easy to sympathize with how hard he is for our heroine to resist.
WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE
Who knew a picture book could be so epic? But you can trace Max’s journey from the call to adventure to the freedom to live (and eat supper).
A group of kids follow the hero’s journey in this film, which ties its happy ending into the literal treasure the children bring back from their Underworld adventure.
STAR WARS
George Lucas sets the hero’s journey in space, but Luke Skywalker’s journey from farm boy to savior of the galaxy echoes the classic journeys of Gilgamesh, Beowulf, and other epic heroes.
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
Scout may be just a kid, but she heeds the call to adventure aided by the guidance of her wise mentor father.
And finally: For a feminist exploration of the hero’s journey, pick up From Girl to Goddess: The Heroine's Journey through Myth and Legend, which explores multicultural myths and folktales with female protagonists.
Great Short Stories for Your High School Literature Class
Suzanne has the definitive guide to the best short stories for your middle school or high school homeschool (or for your own personal reading list).
Suzanne has the definitive guide to the best short stories for your middle school or high school homeschool (or for your own personal reading list). Bonus: You can read most of them online for free.
As Library Chicken readers may already know, the past year or so of my bookish life has been all about falling in love again with short stories. I was an avid short story reader growing up: I read ghost stories, detective stories, classic stories, and all the science fiction and fantasy I could get my hands on, including everything published in the Big Three magazines (Analog, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine). At some point, however, I lost interest in short stories, preferring the complexity (and longer emotional commitment) of novels, even getting to the point where I actively avoided story collections.
Once I decided to focus on short stories in our homeschool-hybrid junior high literature course, though, I had to start reading and rereading for the syllabus, which led to a binge-read that hasn’t yet tapered off, even as we’re about to wrap up the class. (NOTE: For any interested parties, the list of stories we read during the past semester is included at the end of the post.) For my own sake, I wish I’d rediscovered short stories a while back, but I’m really kicking myself that I didn’t use short stories more while homeschooling my own children.
Short stories are WONDERFUL for homeschool. By their very nature, they’re less intimidating than novels for slower and more reluctant readers (and they don’t interfere as much with the stack of recreational reading that avid readers will already have piled by their bedside), and it’s easier for busy parents to work them in as read-alouds or read-alongs. All of the basic concepts of literary analysis and criticism (setting, protagonist, plot, conflict, etc.) can be practiced with short stories, and it’s easy to read a bunch and build up a ‘mental library’ for the purposes of comparison and contrast. It’s a great way to introduce homeschoolers to classic authors and new genres — and if readers hate them, then the suffering doesn’t last very long! If you haven’t already, I highly recommend trying out some short stories in your homeschool curriculum, and if you’re looking for summer reading ideas now that the school year is winding down, short story collections are a great place to start.
So I’m happy to present for your reading enjoyment: Library Chicken’s Top-Ten(ish) Short Story Collections (So Far). (Please note that while I’d have no problem handing any of these to teenage or young adult readers — and many of them to upper elementary and middle school readers — some stories are definitely more adult-oriented and may contain sexual situations, violence, and/or racial or ethnic slurs. If you are considering short stories for your homeschool curriculum, please read them first so you can make the best choices for your own family.)
The Oxford Book of American Short Stories edited by Joyce Carol Oates
The Best American Short Stories of the Century edited by John Updike
100 Years of the Best American Short Stories edited by Lorrie Moore
These three hefty anthologies are great places to start if you’re looking to catch up on American short stories past and present. Many of the best-known and most-anthologized stories (and authors) in our literary tradition can be found here. Don’t be intimidated by massive size of these books — you should feel free to dip in and out and skip around.
The Serial Garden: The Complete Armitage Family Stories by Joan Aiken
ALL AGES. Sadly, I have not done as much reading (and rereading) of short stories for younger readers as I would like, but this collection is a standout. If I had discovered it a few years ago, it would have gone straight into our read-aloud pile; as it was, I immediately bought a copy for our home library. Every Monday (and occasionally on Tuesday) amazing and fantastical things happen to the Armitage family, and you owe it to yourself (and any children you may have wandering about) to get to know them better.
Growing Up Ethnic in America: Contemporary Fiction About Learning to be American edited by Maria Mazziotti Gillan and Jennifer Gillan
Amy Tan, Toni Morrison, Sandra Cisneros, E. L. Doctorow, Louise Erdrich — do I really need to say anything more? (This would be a fabulous text for a homeschool high school literature course.)
American Gothic Tales edited by Joyce Carol Oates
The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer
Short stories are traditionally the home of ghosts and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night, and these two anthologies have some of my favorite and most bizarre examples. They range from deliciously creepy to full-on horror, so read at your own risk!
Tenth of December by George Saunders
Get in Trouble by Kelly Link
What is Not Yours is Not Yours by Helen Oyeyemi
If you prefer your weirdness to come with a more literary bent, these three acclaimed authors can take care of that for you. (Also see any short story collections by Neil Gaiman or China Mieville.) If you have a middle/high schooler who claims to be bored with reading, definitely consider putting some of the stories collected here on your summer reading list.
...Which brings us to the end of our official Top Ten, but I can’t leave without recommending the following classics to all readers and especially homeschoolers:
pretty much anything and everything by Edgar Allan Poe
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
The World of Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
The Annotated H.P. Lovecraft by H.P. Lovecraft
The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
...and a personal favorite that I DID make all of my children read (because I’m a science fiction nerd):
I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
BONUS: Below is the list of stories that we read in our junior high literature class this past session. We typically read and discussed two stories a week. If you are considering coming up with your own list for summer (or whenever) reading, you could go with one story a week and still get a lot of great reading done. Also, when making up your own list, my advice is to start where I started: with the short stories that you love from your own reading AND with the ones (whether you loved or hated them) that still stick in your head from your own school days. If they made a big enough impression that you still remember them (ahem: see “To Build a Fire” below), there’s probably something there worth revisiting.
1. “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe
2. “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” by Arthur Conan Doyle
3. “Big Two-Hearted River” by Ernest Hemingway
4. “The Monkey’s Paw” by W.W. Jacobs
5. “The Luck of Roaring Camp” by Bret Harte
6. “The Courting of Sister Wisby” by Sarah Orne Jewett
7. “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe
8. “To Build a Fire” by Jack London
9. “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Gilman
10. “A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty
11. “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi” by Rudyard Kipling
12. “There Will Come Soft Rains” by Ray Bradbury
13. “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell
14. “Quietus” by Charlie Russell
15. “It’s a Good Life” by Jerome Bixby
16. “Jeeves Takes Charge” by P.G. Wodehouse
17. “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” by James Thurber
18. “Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor
19. “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry
20. “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce
21. “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut
22. “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula Le Guin
23. “The Lady or the TIger?” by Frank Stockton
24. “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson
(I didn’t read them in time for this session, but next time around I’d love to add “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker and “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell.)
30 Ideas (One for Every Day!) for Celebrating Poetry Month in Your Homeschool
It’s National Poetry Month, so let’s celebrate with a roundup of 30 ways to explore poetry in your secular homeschool.
Celebrate National Poetry Month this April with an inspiring activity for every day.
DAY 1: LAUGH IT UP
The National Poetry Foundation’s satiric send-up of what a world with plenty of everyday poetry might look like (Rachel Maddow hosts the MSNBC special “Shakespeare Wrote Shakespeare’s Plays” and ESPN2’s best memorizer competition hits the big time) is hilarious.
DAY 2: LISTEN UP
Log on to the Poetry Everywhere channel, where poets like Galway Kinnell and Adrienne Rich read their favorite and original poems.
DAY 3: FIND YOUR OWN WORDS
Use classic poems or speeches as inspiration for your own poetic work with the Word Mover tool. For kids who have trouble getting those first words down on paper, this is a great place to start; for kids who love putting words on paper, it’s a great way to play with classic texts.
DAY 4: FIND A NEW FAVORITE POEM
A few we love: “Macavity the Mystery Cat” (T.S. Eliot), “April Rain Song” (Langston Hughes), “Sick” (Shel Silverstein), “About the Teeth of Sharks” (John Ciardi), “Rabbit” (Mary Ann Hoberman), “The Adventures of Isabel” (Ogden Nash), “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” (Robert Frost), “What Is Pink?” (Christina Rossetti)
DAY 5: ORGANIZE AN EXHIBITION
Put together a homeschool Poetry Out Loud competition in your town. Whether you decide to choose a winner or not, this recitation exhibition brings poetry to vivid life.
DAY 6: BE INSPIRED
Listen to three teens from the Santa Fe Indian School practice their recitations for the National Youth Poetry Slam Festival in Washington D.C.
DAY 7: MAKE A BLACKOUT POEM
All you need is a newspaper and a Sharpie to make poetry. Scribble out words and sentences on a newspaper page, leaving uncovered carefully chosen words to make a poem. (Tip: Arts pages often have better words to choose from than a newspaper’s front page.)
DAY 8: HAVE A POETRY TEA
Make a Tuesday date around the table to share your favorite poems over a traditional afternoon tea.
DAY 9: SAY HI TO HAIKU
Read classic haiku and master the skills you need to write your own seventeen-syllable poems (in lines of five, seven, five) with this worskshop from the University of Colorado at Boulder's Center for Asian Studies.
DAY 10: GET NERDY WITH IT
Write a Fib, a six-line poem that uses the Fibonacci sequence to dictate the number of syllables in each line.
DAY 11: GO EPIC
What makes a poem epic? Dig into the details of the history and characteristics of this distinctive poetic form.
DAY 12: STAGE A RECITATION
Memorize a poem and perform it for an audience, just like the “Friday concerts” in one-room schoolhouses.
DAY 13: START A COMMONPLACE BOOK
Make your own perfect-for-you poetry collection by copying your favorite poems into a notebook.
DAY 14: PLAN A BIRTHDAY PARTY FOR A POET
There are lots to choose from in April: Maya Angelou was born on April 4, William Wordsworth on the 7th, Charles-Pierre Baudelaire on the 10th, Seamus Heaney on the 13th, Shakespeare on the 23rd, Robert Penn Warren on the 24th, and John Crowe Ransom on the 30th.
DAY 15: TANKA YOU
When is a syllable not a syllable? When it’s an on, a Japanese sound unit used to set the strict metric tone for the Japanese tanka.
DAY 16: Make Poetry move
Students of all ages can be inspired by creating choreography for their favorite poems: Think of it as an interpretive dance that moves with words instead of music.
DAY 17: MAKE A CONNECTION
The Academy of American Poets invites students to write their own poetry in response to poems written by Academy members — what a great reminder that poetry is an ongoing conversation, not just a monologue.
DAY 18: NOMINATE A POET FOR A STAMP
You can nominate any American poet who has been dead for at least ten years to be featured on a U.S. stamp. Send suggestions to: Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee, c/o Stamp Development, U.S. Postal Service. 475 L’Enfant Plaza, SW, Room 5670, Washington, D.C. 20260-2437
DAY 19: LAUGH AT LIMERICKS
Make poetic sense of nonsense with an in-depth look at Edward Lear’s work and the limerick’s form and function.
DAY 20: READ ALOUD
Former poet laureate Billy Collins gives his best poetry reading tips — and suggestions for 180 poems to practice with — on the Poetry 180 website.
DAY 21: MAKE A POETRY COLLAGE
Choose a favorite poem — your own or another writer’s — and illustrate it with a collage. Magazine pictures, flower petals, scrapbook letters, colorful paper, and yarn all make handy collage supplies.
DAY 22: GET PUBLISHED
Mail an original poem to the Poetry Wall at the Cathedral Church of St John the Divine in New York City. All submissions, from poets known and unknown, are hung in the Cathedral’s ambulatory.
DAY 23: DISCOVER NEW POETRY
Former poet laureate Ted Kooser introduces hundreds of hand-picked poems as part of his American Life in Poetry project.
DAY 24: TELL A STORY IN POETRY
Learn about narrative poetry and poetic persona using Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening”and other works as your starting point.
DAY 25: MAKE EVERY DAY A POETRY DAY
Subscribe to the (free) Poem-a-Day newsletter from the Academy of American Poets, and you’ll get a poem in your inbox every morning. The selections are a nice mix of classic and modern.
DAY 26: GET DESCRIPTIVE WITH KARLA KUSKIN
Take an online workshop with poet Karla Kuskin to learn how to use strong, descriptive imagery and language in your poems.
DAY 27: CELEBRATE POEM IN YOUR POCKET DAY
Our second-favorite holiday (right after Read in the Bathtub Day), Poem in Your Pocket Day encourages you to carry a scribbled version of your favorite poem in your pocket to share with other poetry lovers throughout the day.
DAY 28: PLAY EXQUISITE CORPSE
In this surrealist take on MadLibs, players choose a syntax pattern (adjective, noun, verb, adverb, adjective, noun, perhaps) and take turns filling in the blanks to create a poem.
DAY 29: FALL IN LOVE
Read the poems of poets whose romantic relationships influenced their work, such as Elizabeth Barrettand Robert Browning, Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, or Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell.
DAY 30: PLAY WITH SHEL SILVERSTEIN
Head straight for where the sidewalk ends on this fun-filled site. You’ll make your own rhymes, solve cryptograms, test your knowledge of Silverstein’s work, and more.
Homeschool Unit Study: Introduction to Shakespeare
Dive into one of literature’s great authors with a homeschool study of Shakespeare this spring.
Dive into one of literature’s great authors with a study of Shakespeare this spring.
“Shakespeare knows what the sphinx thinks, if anybody does,” wrote Thomas Quayle in 1900 — and though it’s been more than 400 years since William Shakespeare’s birth (in April 1564), the Bard of Avon remains as literarily essential and personally mysterious as he has been since his first show at the Globe Theatre. Dive into one of literature’s great authors with a study of Shakespeare this spring.
Start here:
We know surprisingly little about the historical Shakespeare’s life, but Shakespeare: His Work and his World is a cogent, kid-friendly introduction to his life.
Best Beginner’s Shakespeare
The play’s the thing — but if you’re not quite ready to tackle the plays proper, these texts make useful introductions.
Stories from Shakespeare by Geraldine McCaughrean outlines Shakespeare’s best-known works intelligently and articulately.
Lois Burdett’s Shakepeare Can be Fun series includes five popular plays, retelling their stories in rhyming couplets. The author, who runs a Shakespeare workshop series for kids, writes with staging in mind, so don’t be surprised if your living room becomes the stage for Romeo and Juliet.
Mr. William Shakespeare’s Plays by Marcia Williams uses actual dialogue, comic strips, and imagined comments from the Globe theater audience to help younger readers make sense of Shakespeare’s best known plays.
Shakespeare in Fiction
Living books bring the historical Shakespeare and his time to life and can be a natural lead-in to the author’s plays.
In King of Shadows by Susan Cooper, a modern-day American, in London to play Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, timeslips to the play’s original performance at the Globe Theatre. Shakespeare, who becomes a father figure to teenage Nat, is one of the main characters.
The Shakespeare Stealer by Gary L. Blackwood introduces Widge, an Elizabethan orphan with a knack for shorthand and acting who gets corralled into trying to steal a draft of Shakespeare’s new play Hamlet for an unscrupulous theater manager.
Add a little mystery to your Shakespeare studies with Simon Hawke’s Shakespeare and Smythe series, in which the Bard teams up with an intelligent ostler to solve mysteries that bear a suspicious resemblance to Shakespeare’s future plays.
Critical Readings
When you’re ready to dig deep into the Bard’s work, these dense but insightful texts will point you down delightful rabbit trails.
Originally published in 1934, Caroline Spurgeon’s Shakespeare’s Imagery and What It Tells Us, takes a focused look at Shakespeare’s imagery and what it implies, both about the writer and his relationship with his fellow Elizabethan and Jacobean writers, is utterly fascinating.
The Genius of Shakespeare considers the ways Shakespeare’s work has inspired others, being reinvented and re-envisioned by each new generation. Scholarly, and occasionally gossipy, it’s one of the most readable studies of the Bard.
For a lighter, lively study that focuses on known facts over speculation, Bill Bryson’s Shakespeare: the World as a Stage is thorough and engaging.
Charles Nicholl's The Lodger Shakespeare: His Life on Silver Street is an unexpected delight, focused on a single 1612 lawsuit in which Shakespeare gives testimony in a dispute involving a a daughter, a dowry, and a wig-maker.
Fun Activities
Think of these projects as hands-on ways to experience the pleasures of Shakespeare.
Play Mad Libs with a list of words coined by Shakespeare.
PBS’s Shakespeare Uncovered series follows well-known actors as they explore the history and significance of Shakespeare’s plays; e.g., Ethan Hawke investigates Macbeth, and David Tennant goes backstage with Hamlet.
The Shakespeare Unlimited podcast looks at Shakespeare’s influence — not just in literature and theater (though there’s plenty of that) but also in science and history.
Even if you can’t swing a field trip to the actual Globe Theatre this year, you can take a virtual backstage tour.
Masterpuppet Theatre includes 60 finger puppet cards of memorable Shakespearean figures and 12 backdrops.
Bonus:
If you have the time and inclination, you may enjoy these sci-fi Shakespeare adaptations.
Shakespeare’s Loves Labors Won accidentally summons a group of a group of Eldritch Abominations in Doctor Who’s “The Shakespeare Code.” (Oops.)
Shakespeare in Space: William Shakespeare’s Star Wars retells the Skywalker saga, Shakespeare style.
And here's a list of our favorite Shakespearean film adaptations from the home/school/life blog.
New Books on Our Homeschool Reading List in February 2023
These are the books we’re excited to add to our homeschool reading list in February 2023.
So many books, so little time! But these are the titles on our library holds list.
The Pearl Hunter by Miya T. Beck
Honestly, this one had me at middle grades novel about pre-shogunate Japan. Pearl diver Kai makes a deal with the gods to bring back her twin sister’s soul: She’ll steal a legendary pearl from the Fox Queen, and the gods will give her sister back to her. The buzz on this one is a little iffy, but I’m always going to check out historical middle grades fiction from the Asian world, so this one’s still on my list.
It’s Boba Time for Pearl Li by Nicole Chen
How charming is this? To save her beloved neighborhood boba shop, Pearl Li decides to start selling her handmade amigurumi dolls — but of course it’s a much more complicated project than Pearl Li anticipated! I love boba, yarn crafting, and family stories so this one is right up my alley. I really love books about people who make things with their hands, and I happen to have a school full of crafty homeschoolers looking for book recommendations, so I have high hopes for this one.
The House Swap by Yvette Clark
If a middle grades book is being billed as a mash-up of The Parent Trap and The Holiday, I think we can all feel confident it will find a spot on my reading list. I did have a chance to read an advance copy of this one, and I am happy to report it is as warm and cozy and delightful as that description implies — with an emotional depth that feels all its own. Los Angeles native Sage and English village-dwelling Ally swap stories while their families swap houses for summer vacation.
The Universe in You by Jason Chin
Chin’s dazzling picture book illuminates the microscopic building blocks of life. Definitely read this as a picture book, with your middle grade science classes, and even with your high school biology curriculum. Just read it!
The Bright Side by Chad Otis
Something I am always trying to do with my kids is to normalize life experiences that don’t look like ours. I wish this picture book had been around when they were younger because Otis does a brilliant job showing what life is like for a kid who lives in an old school bus instead of a house. We don’t know why his family lives on the bus — it might be a lifestyle choice or an unhoused situation — but that’s a great reminder that we don’t, in fact, know other people’s backstories and shouldn’t make assumptions about them.
Winston Chu vs. the Whimsies by Stacey Lee
I read an advance copy of this, and I definitely recommend it for middle grades readers. Like all the books in Rick Riordan’s imprint, Winston Chu vs. the Whimsies plays with traditional mythology showing up in the modern world. This time, it’s Chinese folklore — and a magical shop where mysterious things happen. When this imprint is at its best, the modern world stories are as important and complex as the mythologies they spotlight, and that is definitely the case here: Winston’s family is still recovering from his military father’s death in action, and he is a little envious of his wealthy friend who has all the cool stuff and never has to worry about money. There is a lot happening in this book, including a big cast of characters, so it feels a little chaotic at times, but the payoff was definitely worth it for me.
The Davenports by Krystal Marquis
In 1910 Chicago, the four Davenport daughters are among the wealthiest Black families in the United States. If you know me at all, you know that my passion for history comes from Sunfire’s YA historical romance novels, so I was pretty much first in line for this one! It’s definitely lighter on the history than the romance (even though it’s based on the real-life Patterson family, who are totally rabbit trail-worthy, if you are so inclined), but it’s still really cool what it was like to be part of the Black one-percent during the early 20th century. And yay for historical fiction about Black joy and Black success, which I always personally love to see.
No Accident by Laura Bates
Don’t tell my students, but I’m apparently very into stories about teenagers in peril these days. Here’s a dark and twisty YA take on the genre: A chartered plane goes down with a high school basketball team and its cheerleaders on board. Seven teens survive and make it to an island, where they have to figure out how to find water, rig a shelter, and generally survive in the wild. But that’s not all: Something happened at a party the night before the plane went down, and someone wants revenge. I think this is a book that raises a lot of compelling questions. It doesn’t answer them all, but maybe that’s part of the point?
The Swifts: A Dictionary of Scoundrels by Beth Lincoln
In this rambunctiously funny middle grades mystery, Shenanigan Swift puts her detective skills to work solving the murder of her Aunt Schadenfreude at a family reunion. I’m always on the search for a mystery that captures the spirit of my beloved The Westing Game, and while this one didn’t quite get there for me, it was still a madcap mystery adventure that I thoroughly enjoyed. Sometimes reviews comparing new books to much-loved books do the new books no favors, so I will resist the urge to compare this to other middle grades books I have known and love and recommend you go into it with no preconceptions.
The Human Kaboom by Adam Rubin
This middle grades book is just straight-up fun: Six stories with the same title (and all illustrated by different artists) take readers on a riotous romp. There’s a school field trip prank (in space!), a swanky hotel mystery, an ancient curse in a sleepy fishing village, and more. I love this idea of spitballing an entire collection of stories from a single title and definitely recommend stealing it for your next homeschool creative writing session.
The Minuscule Mansion of Myra Malone by Audrey Burges
I’ve always loved dollhouse stories, so I’m excited for this one: Myra Malone’s dollhouse blog has thousands of followers, but it also has mysteries that its 30-something owner can’t begin to understand: Rooms appear and disappear, and sometimes, she can swear she hears haunting music. Then one day a stranger contacts Myra to tell her that her mansion is his childhood home, where his grandmother disappeared when he was just a little boy. From here, their stories intersect with the mystery of the dollhouse, and it sounds like the kind of quietly lovely book I would have loved as a teen.
How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix
My friend Stephanie turned me on to Grady Hendrix — he is great if you love the idea of horror but need it served up with enough humor and hope to keep you from plunging into the abyss. I hope this one delivers more of the same: After their parents’ unexpected deaths, two siblings from a dysfunctional family have to get their Charleston childhood home ready to sell, but there’s something off about the house. Spooky puppets kind of off. If you’ve got a teen horror fan, Hendrix is a solid pick.
What are you excited to read in your February homeschool?
Great Movie Adaptations of Books for Your Homeschool Comparative Lit Classes
Great movie adaptations of books make an instant comparative literature literature class for your secular homeschool. Here are some of our favorite homeschool movies.
You don’t have to choose between the book and the movie in these terrific adaptations — enjoy them both. We’ve rounded up some book-and-a-movie combos perfect for cold weather marathon sessions.
Tales of the Night (2001) + Andrew Lang’s Fairy Books
Though not a literal adaptation of the classic fairy tales, this inventive film about the enchantments of imagination, set in an abandoned theater, channels the same storytelling spirit — and may inspire some living room reenactments.
The Iron Giant (2005) + The Iron Man by Ted Hughes
Really, this animated film — about a boy who teaches a warmongering robot how to love — should get more respect than it does — and Hughes’ lyrical storytelling in the source story is as memorable as his poetry.
The Great Mouse Detective (1986) + Basil of Baker Street by Eve Titus
Sherlock Homes sometimes used the alias Basil, so it’s no surprise that’s the name of the Sherlock Holmes of the mouse world, who — accompanied by his biographer/assistant Dawson — solves baffling crimes.
A Little Princess (1995) + A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The action moves to New York and there are a few other changes in this lavish adaptation, but it slow-paced, dreamy film-making and a terrific Sara Carew make this movie a must-view.
My Fair Lady (1964) + Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
Shaw’s play may feel like heavy going to readers new to his style, so take advantage of the delightful musical adaptation to appreciate its nuances — and to kick off the never-ending argument of what a happy ending to this story would actually be.
The Secret of Moonacre (2010) + The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge
Maria’s quest to save her family from an unfortunate curse is the crux of this fantasy book and movie combo. (The book was J.K. Rowling’s favorite as a child.)
National Velvet (1944) + National Velvet by Enid Bagnold
The film version gets the full Hollywood treatment (star Elizabeth Taylor definitely doesn’t have book-Velvet’s cottony hair and buck teeth), but it manages to hang onto the story of one stubborn girl’s determination to win a horse race.
The Secret World of Arietty (2012) + The Borrowers by Mary Norton
Though it wanders from the book’s storyline, Studio Ghibli’s adaptation captures the sheer visual magic of the Borrowers’ tiny world with gorgeous animation.
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