Teaching and learning resources

Hamlet - Minds Under Stress,
a flipchart for interactive whiteboards

This flipchart will be most appropriate for A-Level English classes approaching the A2 coursework unit, focusing on the AQA coursework comparison theme of ‘Minds Under Stress'. It can be downloaded here.

Each page of this flipchart has been constructed to offer a platform for discussion and language analysis for teachers and students exploring Hamlet.

The resource offers performance extracts from the NT Live broadcast of Nicholas Hytner's Hamlet, as well as short interviews with artists about elements of the play.

Please note that the performance footage may contain controversial staging choices. There is partial nudity in Ophelia's mad scene and Hamlet smokes a cigarette during ‘To be or not to be...'

This flipchart focuses on five key moments in the play:
1) Act 1 scene 2 - Hamlet's soliloquy ‘O that this too too solid flesh would melt'
2) Act 2 scene 2 - Hamlet's soliloquy ‘O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!'
3) Act 3 scene 1 - Hamlet's soliloquy ‘To be, or not to be - that is the question;'
4) Act 3 scene 1 - Ophelia's speech ‘O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!'
5) Act 4 scene 5 - Ophelia's mad scene.

On the left hand side of each page are tabs that offer activities and questions for debate in the classroom.

Each page contains the script for the relevant part of the play, to enable close reading in the classroom.

Suggested ways to engage with the resource:

Watch the performances of the speeches and consider the text in performance. Discuss the choices that the actors and director have made and the affect it has on the audience.

Listen to the comments from the actors and directors to add depth to your class's understanding of the variety of ways Hamlet can be interpreted.

Use the discussion questions and statements to help students gain a deeper and focused understanding of Hamlet's soliloquys and Ophelia's speeches and key scene.
The questions aim to develop student's understanding of language and context.

Please note:

All our interactive whiteboard flipcharts are built for the software ActiveInspire version 1.4 which is compatible with ANY interactive whiteboard and is FREE to download here.

All interactive whiteboard video content is available to watch in your classroom through the LGfL and the NEN. More info.

Other resources:

Hamlet in pictures - a series of images from the production.

'O what a noble mind...' Voice Work - Actor Ellie Turner works with Jeannette Nelson (Head of Voice) on the speech.

'To be, or not to be...' Voice Work - Actor Ferdinand Kingsley works with Jeannette Nelson (head of Voice) on the speech.

Creating Elsinore - a short film focusing on the context of the play, the space in which Hamlet exists. It asks key questions about the play's setting and discusses some of the ways the space has been viewed and interpreted on stage at the National Theatre.