How to Support Students With Reading Shakespeare's Plays

When I taught high school, I always ended the year with one of Shakespeare's plays, Romeo & Juliet for ninth grade and Julius Caesar for tenth.⁠ Students loved getting into character and acting out scenes from the plays. But it can be a challenge to make modern day connections with a text written over 400 years ago.⁠ Here's how I supported students with reading one of Shakespeare's plays.⁠

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Stocking Your Classroom Library: 8 Inexpensive (Or Free!) Possibilities

Building a robust, diverse, and inviting classroom library is something I truly enjoy. Spending lots of my own money on it is not. Students interests can change from year to year, so I am always looking for books that match those, and offering new books is a great way to keep reading enthusiasm high throughout the year. 

If you are building your classroom library or just starting one, you don’t have to spend a lot of money (or any!) either. Before you spend any of your own money, ask at school to see if money from the budget can be used to purchase books. If you get a yearly stipend for your classroom spending (I do), try to save your book purchases until you receive that. If you are spending your own money, consider setting a budget for yourself for each month or the school year as a whole. Read on for 8 places to purchase inexpensive books or get them for free.