English Language Arts · 9th Grade

Active learning ideas

Shakespearean Themes: Power and Jealousy

Active learning works for Shakespearean themes because students need to wrestle with abstract ideas by seeing them in action. When ninth graders track jealousy in a chart or debate ambition in pairs, they move from passive listeners to active detectives of human behavior, which makes abstract themes concrete and memorable.

• Common Core State Standards
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.9
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.2

• 20–50 min
• Pairs → Whole Class
• 3 activities

Activity 01

• Inquiry Circle
• 50 min · Small Groups

Inquiry Circle: Theme Tracking Chart

Groups receive excerpts from three Shakespearean plays featuring similar themes. They build a comparative chart tracking how the theme of unchecked ambition, jealousy, or power appears in each text, with specific quote evidence for each. Groups then synthesize: does Shakespeare's treatment of the theme remain consistent across plays, or does it develop and complicate? They present their most interesting finding.

Why do Shakespeare's explorations of human nature remain popular across different cultures?

Facilitation Tip

During the Collaborative Investigation, circulate with a clipboard to listen for students who are struggling to move from examples to analysis, and ask guiding questions like, 'What pattern do you notice across these moments?'

What to look for

Facilitate a class debate: 'Which is the more destructive force in Shakespearean tragedy: ambition or jealousy?' Students should use specific examples from the plays studied to support their arguments and respond to opposing viewpoints.

• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Create
• Self-Management
• Self-Awareness

Activity 02

• Gallery Walk
• 40 min · Small Groups

Gallery Walk: Jealousy Portraits

Post character descriptions and key quotes from three Shakespearean figures defined by jealousy (e.g., Iago, Lady Macbeth, Leontes). Students rotate and annotate at each station: 'What triggers this character's jealousy? What does it cost them personally? What does it cost others?' At the end, the class identifies patterns in how Shakespeare constructs jealousy across different plays and contexts.

Analyze how the theme of unchecked ambition leads to tragic consequences in Shakespearean plays.

Facilitation Tip

Before the Gallery Walk, assign roles so every student has a job: recorder, speaker, or sketcher, ensuring no one passes as disengaged.

What to look for

Provide students with short excerpts from different Shakespearean plays. Ask them to identify the primary theme (power, jealousy, or ambition) present in each excerpt and briefly explain their reasoning, citing one key phrase or sentence.

• Understand
• Apply
• Analyze
• Create
• Relationship Skills
• Social Awareness

Activity 03

• Think-Pair-Share
• 20 min · Pairs

Think-Pair-Share: The Relevance Test

Students individually identify a current event, news story, or cultural moment that parallels a Shakespearean theme of power or jealousy. They share their analogy with a partner, who evaluates whether the comparison holds up with specific textual and contemporary evidence. Pairs that identify the strongest parallels share with the class, with the class providing one challenge and one point of validation.

Compare the manifestations of jealousy in different Shakespearean characters.

Facilitation Tip

For the Think-Pair-Share, provide sentence stems for the 'Relevance Test' to scaffold the transfer from textual example to modern parallel.

What to look for

Students write a short paragraph analyzing how a specific character's jealousy impacts the plot. They then exchange paragraphs with a partner. The partner evaluates the paragraph for clarity, use of textual evidence, and whether the analysis directly addresses the prompt, providing one specific suggestion for improvement.

• Understand
• Apply
• Analyze
• Self-Awareness
• Relationship Skills

A few notes on teaching this unit

Experienced teachers approach this topic by grounding abstract themes in students’ lived experiences. Start with short, relatable scenarios that mirror Shakespeare’s conflicts, then layer in the text. Avoid summarizing the plot—instead, focus on close reading of key moments where power or jealousy shifts. Research shows that students grasp theme best when they feel the tension in the text before naming it.

Students will demonstrate understanding by identifying textual evidence that supports a theme, explaining how that evidence connects to larger human experiences, and applying the theme to modern situations. Success looks like clear statements, specific quotes, and thoughtful connections between Shakespeare’s world and their own.

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Watch Out for These Misconceptions

• During the Collaborative Investigation: Theme Tracking Chart, students may assume that Shakespearean themes are outdated because society has fundamentally changed.

  During the Collaborative Investigation, point to an empty row on the chart and ask students to brainstorm a modern example of jealousy or power struggle they’ve seen in school, on social media, or in the news. This redirects the conversation from historical artifacts to living psychology.

• During the Gallery Walk: Jealousy Portraits, students may believe a theme is a one-word label like 'jealousy' or 'power'.

  During the Gallery Walk, have students examine the portrait captions. Prompt them to find a caption that names a specific claim, such as 'Jealousy blinds people to the truth,' and ask the artist to explain how their image supports that full sentence, not just the word.

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Methods used in this brief

• Inquiry Circle
• Gallery Walk
• Think-Pair-Share