The Comedy of Errors
Comedy or Tragedy
Learning Module
- Creator(s):
Learning Targets/Standards
1. Advanced Lit - Literature and Informational Theme - Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.
2. Advanced Lit- Literature and Informational Word Meaning - Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone RL (e.g., how the language evokes a sense of time and place; how it sets a formal or informal tone). RI (e.g., how the language of a court opinion differs from that of a newspaper).
3. Advanced Lit- Argumentative Writing - Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.
Learning Focus: To reflect on characters in The Comedy of Errors.
Success Criteria
Watch the videoclip on "Behind the Scenes of The Comedy of Errors". Imagine you are the director. Consider screen and stage actors who you would cast in the roles of the main characters. Think about reasons that would justify these choices of actors.
Comment: Imagine you are the director of a film or stage production of The Comedy of Errors. Who would you cast in the leading roles and why? How would you make the sets of twins convincing to an audience? Read other students' comments and comment on 1-2, explaining why you think their suggestions are good or bad.
Purpose and Teaching Tips
This update aims to capture students' responses to the viewing of the play. As they contribute ideas about the actors, they will be actively contributing to their knowledge community, giving them agency and engaging them in the community discussion in Scholar.
Students will have viewed a film production of the play beforehand. Shakespeare's Globe version of The Comedy of Errors is available on DVD.
The baseline survey is attached here as the first activity that students complete. This survey focuses on students' use of digital tools, preferred forms of feedback, and experience of studying Shakespeare.
After posting the survey to the community activity stream, post the first update.
Learning Focus: To show what I know about Shakespeare and the historical context of The Comedy of Errors.
Success Criteria
The Comedy of Errors is based on the work of Plautus (c. 254 – 184 BC), a Roman playwright. The setting of the play is Epesus which is in modern Turkey. Look at a map of the Roman Empire in 117AD.
Comment: Write down one important fact that you learnt about Shakespeare's life and times, and also any background information on The Comedy of Errors. Read through other students' comments to make sure you don't repeat any information that has already been added. After most students have commented, you can add other facts. Keep adding facts until you run out of ideas. In this way we will have a class summary of all the information you have learnt.
Purpose and Teaching Tips
This update values students' prior knowledge about Shakespeare's life and times and enables the class to revise what they know about Shakespeare in an economical way.
Through the comments, students create a class list of important information they have learnt.
Learning Focus: To identify key ideas in the play and to express these ideas as themes.
Success Criteria
Themes in a play are often expressed as ideas such as separation, loneliness, and power. These can then be turned into a theme. A theme is the message or lesson that the author (or playwright) wants you to take away from the story. For example, friendship is an idea but a theme related to friendship might be "True friendship survives adversity" or "Honesty is important in a friendship". A theme is a statement about human experience which responders may accept or reject, depending on their own world view.
Sequencing the Ideas
Cut out the cards of key idea. As you listen to the reading of the summary of the play, identify an idea and place the card in front of you. Keep adding cards until the reading is complete. You should have a series of idea cards reflecting the plot sequence. You may repeat an idea card as many times as you see fit. You may also use the blank cards to create new idea cards or more cards of existing ideas.
On a second reading, refine the sequence of your cards or add/take away some cards.
Then work with a partner to discuss each other's sequence to come up with a sequence that you both agree on. In your discussion, use evidence from the play to justify your sequence.
Then as a pair, move to work with another pair and repeat the process so that the four of you come up with a sequence that you all agree on.
Take photographs of your idea card sequences.
Then in your group, identify three four ideas and turn them into themes.
Comment: Create your own update by going to the pull down menu of the community and selecting "Updates". Add a photograph of one of your idea card sequences. Describe one key theme in your idea card sequence. Add one quote from the play that illustrates this theme. Post your update. Then read other students' updates and comment on 1-2, adding more information about the theme or another quote to illustrate it.
Purpose and Teaching Tips
This update introduces key themes of the play. The collaborative discussions aim to gain concensus on the themes through justifying ideas with reference to the written version of the play as well as the film. Provide access to texts of the play. Alternatively, students could be given access to a detailed plot summary.
Print out the theme cards for each student. They should cut them out before the reading starts. The theme cards have 6 blank cards for students to add more themes or to create more cards of the existing ideas. These are:
Students can sit on the floor or at a table where they can lay out the cards as they listen to the reading. They will need pens/pencils to write on the blank cards. The teacher reads the first reading. Students may wish to read the second and third readings, or parts of them. Pause quite often in the reading to give students time to sequence their ideas, reorder them, or add new ones.
Students can use their phones to photograph their sequence at different stages to record their thinking. These can be used in the updates that students create. They need to create an update in order to add photographs. When they create an update, they should ensure that they create the update in the community, not in their personal profile. They will know this by using the pull down menu of the community avatar.
Theme in English Textual Concepts
THEME: WHAT IT IS
A theme is a statement about life, arising from the interplay of key elements of the text such as plot, character, setting and language. These work together in a coherent way to achieve the purpose of the text.
Theme differs from the topic of a text (war, the sea) or an idea addressed by a text (prejudice, friendship) in that the theme conveys an attitude or value about an idea (By accepting difference we are enriched. True friendship survives adversity).
At its most basic level a theme may be regarded as the message or even the moral of a text. Themes may be used for a didactic purpose or may add a philosophical dimension, inviting us to think about our place in the world. A theme is a statement about human experience that is profound and which responders may accept or reject, depending on their own world view.
WHY IT IS IMPORTANT
Identifying themes is a higher order skill, moving students beyond the stated details of the text to consider the ideas implied by these details. By explaining how themes emerge students come to an understanding of how individual elements of a text cohere to serve a theme.
Understanding the themes of a text gives students insight into what is valued by a culture and the extent to which they may identify with, accept or challenge these values.
STAGE 5 - Grades 9-10
Students understand that the elements of a text work together to support the theme
They learn that:
STAGE 4 - Grades 7-8
Students understand that theme reflects or challenges values
They learn that:
Learning Focus: To track themes in scenes from The Comedy of Errors.
Success Criteria
| Theme | |
|
Evidence (paraphrase scene in own words) |
Evidence (direct quote with act, scene and lines referenced) |
Comment: After watching the model of how to track a recurring theme in the play, provide one piece of advice to other students on what to do when they track a recurring theme.
Purpose and Teaching Tips
This update focuses on finding evidence to support a theme and seeing how it recurs throughout the play. The evidence will also be useful in the essay.
Model how to track one theme. Then students work in pairs to track at least one other theme. They can draw up the table and complete it with a partner. The collaboration promotes problem solving and deeper thinking as well as providing social support.
| Theme | Identity |
|
Evidence (paraphrase scene in own words) |
Evidence (direct quote with act, scene and lines referenced) |
Learning Focus: To complete your writing project in Scholar.
Success Criteria
Is Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors more a tragedy than a comedy? Present your argument by tracking at least two themes in the play and analyzing Shakespeare's use of language.
Comment: Do you have any questions about how Scholar works? Make a comment in this update. If you think you have an answer to another student's question, please answer it.
Purpose and Teaching Tips
After studying the themes, students are now ready to start their projects.
Once they have started the project, they can spend parts of a lesson working on it and spend part of the lesson completing the remaining updates on Shakespeare's language and purpose. They should draw on the what they learn in these final updates to add to their essays.
Learning Focus: To understand the effects of Shakespeare's language choices in The Comedy of Errors.
Success Criteria
Complete the chart that focuses on how Shakespeare's used the metaphor of water to illustrate one theme in The Comedy of Errors. The water symbol recurs throughout the play, connecting the theme of separation causing loneliness and unhappiness. Find another reference to water (Hint: Look for water, oceans, tears or ship wrecks) OR a different symbol such as money, the ring, the chain or the rope, and add the quote, symbol and what it symbolizes, and poetic device to the table.
| Quote | Symbol: Denotation and Connotation | Poetic Device |
|
I to the world am like a drop of water That in the ocean seeks another drop; Who, failing there to find his fellow forth, Unseen, inquisitive, confounds himself: So I, to find a mother and a brother, In quest of them, unhappy, lose myself. I, ii, 35-40. Antipholus of Syracuse |
Water as a symbol of loneliness and being lost; symbolises unhappy/negative feelings and mood. |
Imagery: Simile - like a drop of water |
|
For know, my love, as easy mayest thou fall A drop of water in the breaking gulf, And take unmingled thence that same drop again, Without addition or diminishing, As take from me thyself, and not me too. II,ii, 124-9 Act 2 Scene 2 Adriana |
Water as a symbol of separation, harming Ariana's relationship with her husband; symbolises unhappy/negative feelings and mood. |
Imagery: Simile - as easy mayest thou fall a drop of water |
|
O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note, To drown me in thy sister's flood of tears Act 3 Scene 2 |
Water - drowning as a symbol of extreme grief; symbolises unhappy/negative feelings and mood. | Imagery: Metaphor - drown me in thy sister's flood of tears |
Comment: Find another symbol in the play and add the quote, symbol and poetic device to the comment box. What is its denotation? What is its connotation? Does the symbol relate to a positive or negative theme? Read other students' comments and comment on one by adding more information, another quote or explaining why you agree/disagree.
Purpose and Teaching Tips
In this activity, students play a game to focus on Shakespeare's language. They then analyse symbols and imagery and how they contribute to the mood of the play.
Inverted Sentence Game - Game Objective
This activity provides students with exposure to the kind of fun Shakespeare had when he wrote sentences. He often juggled the words in his sentences around so that he could change the sound of the sentence without changing its meaning. This activity will help the students appreciate the playful sentence structures they will encounter as they become acquainted with Shakespearean text.
Game Directions
Discuss the context of the lines spoken by Adriana about women having to suffer in silence with emotional pain:
A wretched soul bruised with adversity
We bid be quiet when we hear it cry
Act 2, Sc.1, 34-35.
Divide the class into groups of 15 students (or the number of words in the quote you select). Give each group a set of Active Learning Cards for the Inverted Sentence Game that has been shuffled in advance. In each set, each of the 15 cards contains one word in the sentence. Each student should have one card. If the numbers in the class do not work out evenly, some students may hold two cards or some students are observers. [Note: Do not tell the students Shakespeare’s original sentence.]
Invite each group to make a sentence by arranging themselves in the order they think the words should appear in the sentence. Once the students have created their sentence, ask them to conceal their cards against their chests.
Ask each group to share their sentence with the class, by having each group member turn over his or her card, in order, and read the word aloud.
Note: Following this activity, you may wish to ask each group to sit in a circle and create several sentences by moving the word cards around. Another option is to add magnetic strips to the backs of the cards so that you can display and manipulate one set of cards on a magnetic board for all the class to see.
From English Textual Concepts website.
Students understand that the effect of imagery is subjective.
Students learn that:
Notes on Connotation, Imagery and Symbol
Imagery and symbol enrich a text by making words and images mean more than one thing. They invite students to consider the habitual in terms of the new and so are important to creative and critical thought.
Figurative language has social consequences as it influences the ways we conceptualize people, information and ideas. Critical analysis brings to light these associations and strands of meaning.
Learning Focus: To understand Shakespeare's purpose in The Comedy of Errors.
Success Criteria
Draw up the table. Then with a partner, look up the excerpt and discuss what is happening. Then consider, Shakespeare's purpose and language in each excerpt. Is it just to entertain, illustrate a serious theme, teach us about life or all of these things? Is it to learn about life in the past or is it still relevant today?
| Scene from Play | What is happening? | Which characters are involved? | Shakespeare's language - formal/serious/bawdy? | Shakespeare's Purpose/s |
| I, ii, 41-94 | ||||
| IV, iv, 9-42 |
Comment: Do you think there is value in studying a play written so long ago? Consider Shakespeare's purpose, the language and the themes in the play as you explain why/why not. Comment on 1 other student's comment, building on their ideas or explaining why you agree/disagree.
Purpose and Teaching Tips
This update explores Shakespeare's purpose - Entertain? Teach? Comment on serious issues in society? It also asks students to consider how Shakespeare's language positions an audience - formal language yet often bawdy.
The comment asks students to consider the literary value of The Comedy of Errors by considering whether it is still worth studying in modern times.
Literary Value (from English Textual Concepts website)
LITERARY VALUE: WHAT IT IS
Certain texts have been designated as ‘highly valued’ and have been accorded ‘canonical’ or ‘classic’ status because ‘experts’ declare them to have universal and timeless appeal. However questions such as ‘Whose canon?’ and ‘How universal?’ and ‘What makes this popular?’ are always being asked. In fact the value of any text is always under revision as the principles and processes for ascribing value vary across time and cultures and as popular culture texts emerge as classics.
Literary value does not include the values expressed or implied in a text but refers specifically to how one can attribute worth to a text in terms of its value to ‘civilisation’, a culture, a society, or a particular group of people. Each of these groups may attribute a different value to the text and use different criteria to do so.
WHY IT IS IMPORTANT
Questions of value arise regularly among teachers who need to choose what is valuable for students to study. They also arise among students who want to know why they need to study a particular text and what it is that they value about texts. For these reasons, teachers need to make clear to their students on what basis we make these value judgements and how students can make these judgements themselves.
Students need to understand that texts may be valued for different reasons: their aesthetic value; the significance of their message; their historical value, the ways in which they innovate with technology or the way in which they exemplify important aspects of or movements in literature.
STAGE 5 -Grades 9 and 10
Students understand that texts are valued within personal and cultural value systems and that these may change in different historical and cultural contexts.
They learn that:
STAGE 4 - Grades 7 and 8
Students appreciate that texts are valued for their aesthetic and social significance.
Students learn that:
Learning Focus: To reflect on your learning in this module and the significance of studying Shakespeare.
Success Criteria
Comment: Create un update where you comment on the highlights of your study of Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors? Add multimedia (image, videoclip or audioclip) of a great scene from one of Shakespeare's many plays or sonnets that illustrates the positives of studying Shakespeare. Read other students' updates and comment on 2 that your found interesting or agreed with, explaining why.
Purpose and Teaching Tips
This update builds on the previous one where students reflect further on the value of studying Shakespeare.
Encourage students to be creative in finding images, videoclips, audioclips, and quotes that illustrate why we still study Shakespeare today. In this way they will be active knowledge makers, adding multimedia to their knowledge community.