Reddit mentions of Shakespeare Set Free: Teaching Romeo & Juliet, Macbeth & Midsummer Night (Folger Shakespeare Library)

We do a Folgers unit for Romeo and Juliet that has been super successful. It is all performance-based assessments and gets kids out of their seats multiple times a week. We mix the Folgers lessons and assessments with a few more traditional things (an essay and a test, for example), and we take out some of the less useful or interesting lessons (there's one where they just dance...? It's weird.). But we more or less do the unit as written and it's really enjoyable for us and for the kids. You can get all the lessons in this book. It takes us about two months to do the whole unit but it's worth it. I'm happy to send a sample pacing map that we used this past semester for this unit if you're interested. Two other things that tend to work well:

• Start the year with "The Most Dangerous Game", which is a relatively quick read but deep enough to study things like character, theme, and other terms that freshmen might need a refresher on.
  
• Things Fall Apart unit. Teaching it now for the third time to freshmen (I've also done it with older grades). The novel itself is easy save for the names, and it's a flexible sort of unit timing-wise. You can do it in like 3-4 weeks or you can stretch it to almost 2 months if you want. There's tons of room for history stuff, and Common Lit has great suggestions for paired readings. Hope this helps! I have lots of curricula so let me know if you want any materials, pacing maps, or other info.

A great place to start is the Folger Shakespeare Library's Shakespeare Set Free series. It's day by day lesson plans, some of which are great, some of which are so-so, focusing on performance. Here's a link: https://www.amazon.com/Shakespeare-Set-Free-Teaching-Midsummer/dp/0743288505/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=3M92XFXTGYFZY4NJKWV6

It's the best teaching resource I've ever owned.

I'm not sure if you mean Shakespeare Set Free (which is published by Folger), but I would highly recommend/second this resource. There are great activities to help students engage with the language and it goes at a pretty quick pace.

Which play?

The Folger Shakespeare Library website has tons of lessons which are interactive, “on your feet” style.

And, I can’t recommend this enough:
Buy this book! - I used it for MacBeth last year, and gave it to my neighbor this year for A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It’s a serious game-changer with loads of lessons (entire unit plan) that are interactive and actually fun!

Hi, your research projects sound like a good start. I would change the project about "tragic hero" to "tragic flaw" or "tragic act." I worked with some Shakespeare scholars this summer and they said the idea of the tragic hero came about recently and it is anachronistic with Shakespeare.

Also, I don't know if you've already planned your whole unit, but I strongly recommend using the [Shakespeare Set Free] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743288505/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=1535523722&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0671760467&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1KZKD0PM2A0Z50Y71C31) curriculum from the Folger Shakespeare library to help you with your lessons. It is all about close reading and making Shakespeare fun. I cannot recommend it enough. Good luck!