This is another guest post from Anthony Peters @apeters522 who is an innovative English teacher from Parklands College in Cape Town. In previous posts Anthony shared his very successful Shakespeare QR code Scavenger Hunt Assessment activity done with Grade 9 students, as well as Awesome Aurasma – teaching the different forms of humour to a Grade 9 class using Aurasma and ‘Vivacious Visual Literacy!’ An innovative assessment task for Grade 9 Visual Literacy. Today’s post features his innovative celebration of World Book Day , which is now commonly affiliated with William Shakespeare’s birthday. Thank you for your great sharing Anthony and Parklands College!

Parklands College educators and learners celebrated William’s brilliance this week for World Book Day by participating in a host of exciting activities designed to show us all why the bard was, and still is, the marvel of masterpieces at the ‘well-seasoned’ age of 450!

Preparing for World Book Day

In preparation for World Book Day and in honour of Shakespeare himself, all learners from grades 8 and 9 had to produce a digital book review that analysed the plot, characters, themes and idyllic readership of their favourite reads. The learners were allowed free rein over any app or media-editing software and as usual, they came up with some spectacular results! iMovie, Morfo, GarageBand, iCanAnimate- were just a few of the apps used to enhance the book review quality and ‘bring to life’ literature through the learners’ evidently ‘unlimited’ imagination! Finally, the digital book reviews were shared on the school’s internal television network for all to see!

Digital book review examples

In preparation for World Book Day (and William Shakespeare’s 450th birthday) the learners were encouraged to create a digital book review based on their favourite read! Here is Tina Hadjoidakis’s review.

This is Mia Browne’s review.

Shakespeare – a comedy genius with a wicked sense of humour!

Shakespeare had the reputation as being a flawless poet, writer and actor, not to mention him also possessing a vocabulary unmatched by most. With his evolved sense of humour and ‘suggested’ impatience with those he deemed inferior; he was noted as having the most natural aptitude for insulting people! For instance, ‘Thou art as fat as butter!’ and ‘I came here for a battle of wits, but I see that you have arrived unarmed!’ These are just two of an extensive repertoire that William could conjure swiftly and effortlessly. Therefore, we used QR Codes to successfully blend the old with the new and many of these insults (as well as notable quotes from various plays) were converted into codes that were hidden around the school for the learners to scan, read and enjoy!

“Better a witty fool than a foolish wit”  –Shakespeare

Despite the obvious comedic value of this, the learners were also being indirectly shown that Shakespeare is not simply an old and largely incomprehensible deceased man, but a comedy genius with a wicked sense of humour!

The Shakespeare Safari…

During break times at Parklands, there was also the much-anticipated Shakespeare Safari. This involved a number of very talented and well-read thespians taking to the stage and acting out famous scenes from various works including: Hamlet, Much a Do About Nothing and Romeo and Juliet. These short sketches were performed at different locations around the school and were well attended by the academically absorbent populace!

 

Guess the characters?

If that was not enough…there is more! Despite this being a wonderful day of celebrating William’s wonderful works, World Book Day was recognised by a not-so-small battalion of Grade 12 learners and educators. These enthusiastic individuals spent the whole day dressed as either their favourite author or character and it was the job of the rest of the school to work out who they were supposed to be and thus spark interesting conversations! Can you guess the characters of the bizarrely attired individuals below?

	Can you guess the characters of the bizarrely attired individuals shown here?

SchoolNet says: What a great way to celebrate World Book Day as well as Shakespeare’s birthday all at once! We love hearing about the learning that takes place at Parklands College. Thank you to Anthony Peters and the creative English Department at Parklands College in Cape Town for sharing this great post with us.