Teaching Shakespeare's Henry V: Comparing Shakespeare's play to David Michôd's The King

Abstract

Since 2007, learning goals for modern foreign language education have been described by SLO. This includes literary education. However, little guidance is given teachers on how to teach literature. New developments by Curriculum.nu will make literature more essential in the modern foreign language classroom. Furthermore, new descriptors by the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) with regards to literature provide new possibilities in literary education. Research on literary education shows that emphasis needs to be put on guidelines for literary education. Bloemert’s Comprehensive Approach proposes four ways in which to teach literature, namely, the text-, context-, language-, and reader approach. Furthermore, researchers on literary education argue that other media, like film, games, and song lyrics can be regarded as literary texts and used in the classroom. This thesis argues that Shakespeare is an excellent tool to use for current and future learning goals of literary education. With regards to the context approach, in terms of historical, social, and cultural context, Shakespeare’s history plays are useful. Furthermore, a recent film adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry V, David Michôd’s The King, has given the great history play new life. This thesis will present a lesson series design that develops students’ higher order thinking skills of analyzing, evaluating, and creating with regards to the play Henry V in comparison to the film. Then, interviews will be conducted to evaluate the practicality and effectiveness of the design. After this, revisions will be made to create a design that is ready to be used in the classroom.