Shakespeare's Sonnets are meant to be enjoyed by the public and also by the person to whom they are addressed — a subtweet for the Renaissance, if you will. Students should become able to enjoy these both as sincere expressions of feeling and as public entertainment, and learn them both in a performance style and as the intimate, personal poems they are.
The thought questions in this lesson plan provide material and ideas that students can use to write short original essays and to develop their powers of thought. For the sake of improving the power of expression, teachers should encourage students to write on topics that have been discussed in class, this time in the more...
