Teaching Othello at A Level – new worksheets launched

Earlier this term, a new crossref-it.info text-guide was launched on Shakespeare’s tense and dramatic tragedy, Othello, alongside the entire text online – all free and easily accessible at www.crossref-it.info. 

This play features widely across the 2015+ A Level English syllabuses so it’s likely that many teachers are soon to embark on teaching it, if they haven’t already.

Cut your lesson prep!

To save teachers the headache of preparation over the long awaited Easter holidays, a series of six detailed worksheets for teachers are being launched today. They cover topics such as:

• The central relationship between Othello and Iago
• The role of the three women in the play
• An exploration of the structure, pace and tension of Othello
• The way attitudes towards love, sex and male/female relationships motivate characters
• An examination of the momentous final scene
• How far prejudice about ‘outsiders’ is at the heart of the play.

Every worksheet contains ideas and activities which will take you through a number of lessons and homework sessions, as well as being extremely helpful when it comes to revision! Most of the lesson sequences also have easily photocopy-able resources to hand to students, saving you that extra bit of effort.

All bases covered

Written by established UK A Level Literature teachers and examiners, who know what you need to deliver to ensure exam success, the worksheets have:

• Clear teaching objectives
• Introductory activities
• Textual exploration
• Ideas to structure discussion
• Creative or re-creative tasks to engage students laterally
• Traditional essay topics 
• Extension tasks for the quick or dedicated workers amongst your students.

Where it is helpful, the lesson ideas refer students back to the extensive contextual background knowledge which they need to be aware of, found in the main Othello text-guide.

We hope students of Literature everywhere will come to appreciate the qualities of this exciting drama, as we celebrate the 400th anniversary of the man who wrote it.