Digital Mysteries: Shakespeare Bundle 12+

Digital Mysteries: Shakespeare Bundle has three educational, unique apps which encourage pairs of 11-16 year olds to collaborate over and discuss Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Macbeth.

Each individual Shakespeare Digital Mystery has been popular since launching in April 2015; users are given digital, illustrated slips of information all around a Shakespeare play. They must read these, organise them into groups and then arrange into a sequence to represent their thought pattern. This is in response to one main, open question given by the app. All apps have three difficulty levels.

Romeo & Juliet

Focus: Act Three Scene One in Romeo and Juliet

Question: ‘How and why does the fight in Act Three Scene One of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ escalate into such a serious incident?’

App goal: Enable students to understand and discuss this popular choice for assessment. Act Three Scene One is a crucial scene with lots of dramatic appeal and interest.

Levels: 16 slips on the ‘easy’ setting, with more coming in at each level: ‘medium’ (20) and ‘hard’ (24). At all levels, it can be used to learn more about Act Three Scene One, get to know the characters and plot points, as well as help students remember particular quotes.

It is suggested that lower abilities could use the app to clarify the important plot points that can sometimes be elusive to them. The more able could use it to explore Shakespeare’s skills as a dramatist, and the most advanced students could use it to begin an exploration of the wider theme of ‘contrasts’ and ‘opposites’ that characterise the play.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Focus: Relationships, power, writer’s purpose and use of language, structure of the text

Question: Which of the characters in ’A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ possesses the most power?

App goals: The mystery is designed to help students explore relationships in the play and should help to address the assessment objectives that deal with writer’s purpose and use of language, and the structure of the text.

Levels: On 'easy', there are 18 slips, ‘medium’, 26 and ‘hard’, 33. At all levels, it can be used to explore the way the theme of love is presented and explored. Students are also encouraged to consider which of the characters have power over the others and how – accordingly - control can be exerted and maintained.

As the difficulty level increases, the added slips provide more information to help students focus on other elements too. An example from the medium level is how students can widen their analysis to cover how power can be manipulated and usurped. An example from the hard level is the way the extra slips introduce the ‘play within the play’ at the end of the story. This brings in an array of options to discuss and focus on, such as the ‘power’ that the playwright himself can wield upon the audience and its response to the performance.

Macbeth’s Influences

Question: What are the key influences on the behaviour of Macbeth?

App goal: Help students ‘unpack’ and analyse the events leading up to Macbeth’s decision to become a multiple murderer

Levels: This resource is intended to enable students to understand and discuss another popular choice for GCSE assessment. On the ‘easy’ setting, there are 12 slips, with more coming in at each level: ‘medium’ (18) and ‘hard’ (24).

It's suggested that lower abilities could benefit from guidance so they can identify evidence to support their conclusions about Macbeth’s motivation. More able students can discuss Macbeth’s character, but it's hoped that this exercise will help them to evaluate the importance of each factor, and the ways that Macbeth’s actions and statements reflect the evolution of his character and relationships over the course of the play.

Go to 'Developer Apps' to view our full range.