The Trial of Hamlet

In this lesson students have the chance to research courtroom procedure to try Hamlet for the murder of Polonius. Then, with some students in the roles of characters from the play, the class will conduct the trial of Shakespeare's most famous anti-hero.

A lesson plan for grade 12 English Language Arts

By Ross White

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Legal

Learning outcomes

Students will apply critical processes and gain an increased stake in the text through real-world interaction with the characters of the play.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

6 Hours

Materials/resources

• Shakespeare’s Hamlet
• a black robe or gown (to be used by the judge)
• a gavel

Technology resources

None required. Technology can be integrated into this lesson by having the prosecution and defense team structure their opening and closing arguments, as well as relevant evidence, as PowerPoint or HyperStudio presentations.

Optional: computer with Microsoft PowerPoint or HyperStudio

Pre-activities

Assign Shakespeare’s Hamlet. I have found that the assignment works best when students have already had a chance to discuss the play and the difficulties they encountered with the language.

Identify your jury. You may want to let the judge rule on the verdict, or you may want to use outside observers (if you have volunteers who will commit to coming to class for the length of the trial). I have, in the past, served as the jury to keep the peace in the classroom and to keep the students cognizant that they must make their arguments to me.

Activities

1. Introduce the lesson and give a brief description of the activities to follow.
2. Divide the students into groups: judge, characters, prosecution, and defense. Students with an interest in drama tend to gravitate toward the character roles; I encouraged some of the more shy folks to try those roles as well, with fantastic results.
3. Give the students some time to research courtroom procedure and their texts. You may want to have each group research different facets of courtroom procedure and present them to each other, so you have a common understanding of how the trial will work. (See the relevant web sites section below for some resources on courtroom procedure.)
4. Give the legal teams some time to work with the witnesses, so they can prepare strategies for displaying their knowledge of the text.
5. Assign each character to be a witness for either the prosecution or the defense. Assign the following tasks to each group:
   
   • Characters: Write a witness’s statement describing events of the day Polonius was murdered from the point of view of your character.
   • Prosecution Team: Develop an argument to support the claim: “Hamlet is guilty of the murder of Polonius”. Give reasons and evidence to support your claim, using the statements of your witnesses.
   • Defense Team:Develop an argument to support the claim: “Hamlet is not guilty of the murder of Polonius.” Give reasons and evidence to support your claim, using the statements of your witnesses.
6. Defense and prosecution teams can then prepare certain questions and the witnesses can prepare their answers, using citations from the text. (Limiting the witnesses to one team or the other ensures that they will be prepared with citations but will also have to demonstrate knowledge of the text “on the fly.”) If you have chosen to integrate HyperStudio or PowerPoint, students may need more time and instruction as they build their presentations.
7. Conduct the trial. Allow witnesses to use their texts when on the stand. If you integrate technology, introduce the presentations as evidence or as aids to the opening or closing arguments.
8. To aid in assessment, you may require a written component at several stages: witnesses must write their own depositions, legals teams must write opening and closing statements, and the judge must write his decision explaining which argument (defense or prosecution) was most convncing and why.

Assessment

Assessment will vary, depending on the role each student played in the trial.

Judge:

• Did the judge remain fair and impartial?
• Did the judge research courtroom procedure and acceptable behavior?
• Did the judge enforce the rules of the court?
• Did the judge demonstrate adequate knowledge of the text when admitting evidence, hearing arguments, and ruling on objections?
• Grade the judge’s decision of the courtroom action based on: fairly weighing the evidence, evaluation of the two arguments, support for finding of guilt or innocence.

Attorneys:

• Did the prosecution and defense teams do adequate research on the charges levied against Hamlet?
• Did they prepare for each witness?
• Did they research courtroom procedure?
• Did they use the text to form valid arguments to support their cases?
• Grade the opening and closing arguments based on: textual evidence and citations, relevance, grammar, persuasive writing.

Witnesses:

• Did the witness use relevant textual evidence to answer questions?
• Did the witness demonstrate a superior knowledge of the text by giving appropriate answers even without direct textual evidence?
• Did the witness act sympathetically to one team of attorneys or another in accordance with the character they were portraying?
• Did the witness stay in character throughout the trial?
• Grade the witnesses’ depositions based on: textual evidence and citations, use of Shakespearean language, relevance, and grammar.

You may evaluate the (optional) HyperStudio or PowerPoint presentations for completeness, correctness and appropriateness of information, and for use of one or more multimedia elements, such as pictures, sound, or video.

Supplemental information

By giving students ownership of the text, I got some really wonderful and very unpredictable results. One judge banned a member of the prosecution from his courtroom for wearing inappropriate clothing after two warnings, citing one of the websites listed below; one group attempted to call expert witnesses in the form of other teachers and parents; one group called the ghost of Polonius himself to the stand, which led to a surprisingly well-informed debate on the legality of using deceased witnesses.

Technology can be integrated into this lesson by having the prosecution and defense team structure their opening and closing arguments, as well as relevant evidence, as PowerPoint or HyperStudio presentations.

Related websites

Uniform Rules of Procedure for Justice Court: A nice site for researching the appearance and procedures of the courtroom.
http://www.mslawyer.com/mssc/index015.html

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure: Information on how a charge comes to trial. Some classes may choose to try Hamlet in a civil trial, which makes this site much more useful.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/overview.htm

Comments

I am always looking for additional resources for presenting courtroom procedure to help my students research this lesson. If you find something useful; or if you adapted, modified, or just enjoyed using this lesson, please e-mail me!