Ms. Samson – 8th Grade Language Arts 1 Name ______Period ______Date ______Making a Good Slide On your own: 1. Read the text below. 2. Underline or highlight information that you would include on a slide about Shakespeare’s success in the theatre. 3. Create a draft of a slide to share this information with your classmates.

With your group: 1. Create a draft on paper of a slide to share this information with your classmates.

The first reference to Shakespeare in the literary world of London comes in 1592, when a fellow dramatist, Robert Greene, declared in a pamphlet written on his deathbed: “There is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers heart wrapt in a Players hide supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you; and, being an absolute Johannes Factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country.” What these words mean is difficult to determine, but clearly they are insulting, and clearly Shakespeare is the object of the sarcasms. But there is evidence that Shakespeare began to prosper early and tried to retrieve the family’s fortunes and establish its gentility. A coat of arms was granted to John Shakespeare in 1596. Rough drafts of this grant have been preserved in the College of Arms, London. Almost certainly William himself took the initiative and paid the fees. The coat of arms appears on Shakespeare’s monument (constructed before 1623) in the Stratford church.

SLIDE TIPS:  Communicate interesting or important information that helps your classmates imagine what it was like to live in Shakespeare’s time.  Be sure that each slide contains a visual element (picture, design element, map, etc.) AND text.  Use enough text to help your classmates understand your topic, but not so much that they are reading instead of listening to your presentation.  There are no spelling or grammar errors on your slides.

Arts and Technology Academy A Midsummer Night’s Dream