Hamlet Act 3 Scene 4 Analysis

Clip 1, “Task 2 Engaging Class Discussion,” illustrates a time during my lesson that I engaged students to construct meaning from two film adaptations of the same scene, Act 3 Scene 4, from Hamlet. I engaged the class by asking questions to draw inquiry, and it initiated a class discussion, where students were drawing on their initial reactions and interpretations that they had from just reading the text and comparing them to their interpretation now after watching both clips. I wanted the students to understand that analyzing an original text with the use of media can alter or enhance each individual’s interpretation. Clip 2, “Task 2 Student Interaction,” illustrates a part from earlier in the lesson, when I went around facilitating each group. Students were split into groups, and each group had different aspects of the film that they had to discuss; they had to discuss aspects such as, Gertrude and Hamlet’s tone of voice, the settings, props, and costumes, and the background music and how all of
For example, when we were drawing on the relationship between Gertrude and Hamlet, the students were going back and forth about if Hamlet loved his mother and vice versa, so I said, “either interpretation would work, but it differs because of, okay, well that is his mom, so he has to love her, but how much does he love her? He looked like he was literally going to kill her in either one, or he could kill her, but they were interrupted, so what would have happened if she wouldn’t have shouted for help and Polonius didn’t come” (01:35). Because the students went back and forth and we had two different responses, I had to build on those responses to promote more inquiry and thinking so that they did not continue to go back and forth about that one aspect of the