“You are Quoting Shakespeare if…” Lesson Idea

If you ever said the phrase, “It’s greek to me”, you are quoting Shakespeare.  If you have ever stated, “In my mind’s eye”, you are quoting Shakespeare.  If you have ever heard the phrase, “Dead as a doornail”, or “foregone conclusion”, or “it is high time”, yep, you got it, you are quoting Shakespeare.  As you know with my Shakespeare Insult Generator, or my Shakespeare for Kids books, I’m always trying find creative ways to engage kids with the pure awesomeness of The Bard.  Well, thanks to @ChrisWaterworth for pointing this one out to me, here is a great classroom activity to get your kids knowing how Shakespeare is affecting their everyday lives.  Simply put, the activity is all about “you are quoting Shakespeare”. You obviously can iterate this idea any way you wish, but my thoughts are simple (not surprise there!).  Give your kids a random topic (or let them choose) to write about one page worth of text where they have to use 10 everyday Shakespeare references.  Phrases like I stated above, or even words he created like: eyeball, dalmatian, obscure, etc.  But, the entire point of this activity is to get the kids to realize the language they are using today, was derived, in large part, to many of the phrases and words that Shakespeare wrote down over 400 years ago. Tweet or email me with how this lesson plan worked for your kids, I would love to hear and share more ideas! Have fun!