LESSON 11: Songs of love and loss

This lesson has been adapted from Lessons 29 and 30 in your pack.

Learning objective
To explore how Shakespeare uses songs and lyrical language in The Tempest

Starter

  • Hand out the cut-out cards from Worksheet 17. Students should work in pairs to arrange the lines of Ariel’s song into the correct sequence.
  • Explain that this is an interesting exercise forexploringwhether the lines have a natural musicality to them, and also whether they tell part of a story or are purely descriptive.

Introduction

  • Refer to the correctly arranged version of Ariel’s song from Act 1 Scene 2 lines 462–469 and emphasise that these words are a song, not merely a poem. Give students a choice of activities:
  • Arrange a singing performance of this song (e.g. A rap version? To the tune of ‘Humpty Dumpty’ or ‘Praise to the Holiest in the Height’?).

or

  • Create a 3D collage of the description of Ferdinand’s father (e.g. pearly beads for his eyes, etc.).
  • Briefly discuss why Ariel sings this to Ferdinand at this point of the play. Emphasise the language and tone of loss and its effect on Ferdinand.

Development

  • Explain that Shakespeare often uses language to create tone and convey character as well as develop plot. Explain that in the drama of Shakespeare time, a person’s outward appearance was often considered to be a reflection of his or her inner worth. The characters in The Tempest certainly see Caliban’s deformity as a sign of his evil – does Miranda trust Ferdinand because he is handsome?
  • Read through Worksheet 18 and ask students to complete it to reinforce their understanding of contrasting language. Only the more able are likely to complete task 2. Take feedback.

Plenary

  • Re-write the beginning of Act 3 Scene 1 lines 1–15 using modern language but keeping the range of contrasts.
  • Share these with the rest of the class.

Worksheet 17: Sequencing lines of song

Of his bones are coral made;
Hark! now I hear them-Ding-dong, bell.
But doth suffer a sea-change
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Into something rich and strange.
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Ding-dong.

Worksheet 18: Contrasting language

Resources

When Prospero realises that Miranda and Ferdinand have fallen in love, he says they have changed eyes (Act 1 Scene 2, line 440). It appears that Miranda has always been obedient to her father, but falling for Ferdinand leads her to tell him her name, so disobeying her father’s order. Ferdinand, meanwhile, decides he can even put up with slavery and imprisonment as long as he can continue to see Miranda (compare this with how Caliban undertakes the work Prospero orders him to do).

1Ferdinand’s soliloquy while he collects logs for Prospero in Act 3 Scene 1 (lines XX–XX) is full of opposites as he thinks about how Miranda’s love has made what is bad seem good. Use different coloured pens to underline the four pairs of contrasts.

There be some sports are painful, and their labour

Delight in them sets off. Some kinds of baseness

Are nobly undergone; and most poor matters

Point to rich ends. This my mean task would be

As heavy to me as odious, but

The mistress which I serve quickens what’s dead,

And makes my labours pleasures. O, she is

Ten times more gentle than her father’s crabbed –

And he’s composed of harshness. I must remove

Some thousands of these logs, and pile them up,

upon a sore injunction. My sweet mistress

Weeps when she sees me work, and says such baseness

Had never like executor. I forget. [Picks up the log]

But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labours,

Most busy, least when I do it.

basenessunpleasantness
odioushorrible
sore injunctionorder backed up with the threat of punishment

2Oppositions like this are called antitheses and The Tempest is full of them. Can you find any other examples?

______

______

______

______

______

Lesson 12: Power and authority

(This lesson has been adapted from Lessons 31 and 32 in your pack.)

Learning objective
To understand how Shakespeare uses language to explore power and authority in The Tempest.

Starter

Try either or both of these simple activities to indicate to students the power of language.

  • Get students to watch TV with the sound muted. How much can they understand?
  • Cut out the mime cards from Worksheet 19and ask students to convey these messages (which range from simple to increasingly complex)in mime. This can be done as a whole class activity or in groups, with each student taking one card each. What do students miss? What cannot be conveyed?

Introduction

  • Explain that many insults, curses and threats are used in The Tempest often to show a position of power or as a response to powerlessness. Refer to Worksheet 20 and as a class go through the example shown.
  • Next, ask the class to complete the other two tasks (Act 1 Scene 2 lines 540–543 and Act 1 Scene 2 lines 560–561).
  • Discuss why people call each other names or insult one another? Do you notice any patterns of language in the threats, curses or insults? (e.g. language to do with nature, disease or animals?)

Development

  • What makes some characters’ language or speech particularly powerful? Display OHT 21 and go over the list of powerful language techniques (adding more if the class can think of any).
  • Divide the key scenes up and allocate sections to pairs of students. Students should then read through their section and highlight/annotate any examples of powerful language.
  • Take feedback and emphasise that not all scenes will contain all the rhetorical techniques.

Plenary

  • Ask the question: Which character’s language is most powerful and whose is most abusive?
  • Ask students to confer amongst themselves first and then lead a short debate on the topic; push the more able for examples of language/quotations – is it the same person? Is there more than one contender for each category?
  • This could be written up into a short essay for homework.

Worksheet 19: Mime cards

What time is it? / I am a vegetarian
My sporting hero is
…………………………... / What did you eat for
breakfast?
What is your favourite
ring-tone? / What is your best subject
at school?
What are you doing on
Saturday night? / Who is your favourite author?

Worksheet 20: What’s the threat?

What is the threat in each of the quotations below? If possible, look up any unfamiliar language in a copy of the play. Then complete the gaps in the sentence underneath the quotation, to give a modern translation of each threat in your own words. The first translation has already been done, to start you off.

Context: Prospero talking to Ariel after Ariel has asked for his freedom.
Quotation:
If thou more murmur’st, I will rend an oak,
And peg thee in his knotty entrails, till
thou hast howl’d away twelve winters.
(Act 1 Scene 2, lines 294–296)
Threat: If you complain any more, then I’ll trap you in the middle of an oak tree and leave you screaming there for twelve years.
Context: Prospero pretends he thinks Ferdinand is a traitor.
Quotation:
I’ll manacle thy neck and feet together;
Sea water shalt thou drink; thy food shall be
The fresh-brook mussels, withered roots and husks
Wherein the acorn cradled.
(Act 1 Scene 2, lines 540–543)
Threat: If you ______
______
Context: Prospero talking to Miranda, who is trying to defend Ferdinand.
Quotation:
Silence! One word more
Shall make me chide thee, if not hate thee.
(Act 1 Scene 2, lines 560-561)
Threat: If you______
then I’ll______

OHT 21:Powerful language techniques

  • Alliteration – to make things memorable
  • Onomatopoeia – to make things seem more real
  • Repetition of key words – for emphasis
  • Balanced phrases
  • Exaggeration – to be persuasive
  • Emotive words – to involve the audience
  • Dramatic words and phrases
  • Metaphor and simile and other imagery – to give the

audience a picture in their minds

  • Groups of three
  • Pronouns – to involve the audience
  • Exclamations – to add emphasis
  • Questions – to make the audience think

Teachit KS3 Interactive Pack © HarperCollins Publishers and Teachit (UK) Ltd 2008. This page may be photocopied for use in the classroom1