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Reading schedule · Grades 8–12

King Lear in 5 Weeks: A Reading Schedule

A five-week plan for reading Shakespeare's King Lear, one act a week. Each week gives the reading, a short summary of what happens, three discussion questions and the escape room that goes with it. For grades 8–12, in class or at home.

Pacing

One act a week suits most high school classes. Read the act across the first part of the week, in class or at home and ideally with some of it read aloud, then use the questions for discussion or a short written response and finish the week with the escape room. Acts vary in length, so give a long act an extra lesson if it needs one: nothing is lost by stretching a week.

Each week ends with an escape room on that week's reading: seven self-checking locks that run in any browser, with no logins, and progress is saved, so a room can be finished another day. Every room has free taster locks to try, and members can open them all.

Print this schedule Escape rooms on King Lear

Week 1: Act 1

Read: Act 1

King Lear divides his kingdom among his daughters according to how much they say they love him; Goneril and Regan flatter him, but Cordelia will not and is disowned. Kent is banished for defending her, France marries her without a dowry, Edmund forges a letter against his brother Edgar, and Kent returns in disguise to serve Lear as he quarrels with Goneril.

Discussion questions

1. Why does Cordelia refuse to play the love test, and is she right?
2. How does Edmund's complaint about his place in the world compare with the sisters' ambitions?
3. What does the Fool see that Lear does not?

Escape room: The Love Test (lockedlessons.com/rooms/king-lear-act-1/)

Week 2: Act 2

Read: Act 2

Edmund stages a fight to make his father believe that Edgar wants him dead, and Edgar flees and disguises himself as a mad beggar. Kent quarrels with Oswald and is put in the stocks, and Goneril and Regan strip Lear of his knights until he goes out into the stormy night.

Discussion questions

1. How does Edmund manage to deceive Gloucester so easily?
2. What does putting the king's messenger in the stocks say about the sisters?
3. Why does Lear's need for his knights matter so much to him?

Escape room: The Doors Close (lockedlessons.com/rooms/king-lear-act-2/)

Week 3: Act 3

Read: Act 3

Lear rages in the storm with the Fool and Kent and shelters in a hovel with Edgar, disguised as Poor Tom. Gloucester decides to help the king, Edmund betrays him to Cornwall, and Gloucester is blinded.

Discussion questions

1. What does Lear learn in the storm about the poor and about himself?
2. Why is Poor Tom such a powerful figure for Lear?
3. How does the blinding of Gloucester change the mood of the play?

Escape room: Blow, Winds (lockedlessons.com/rooms/king-lear-act-3/)

Week 4: Act 4

Read: Act 4

Edgar, still in disguise, leads his blind father towards Dover, and Albany turns against Goneril. Cordelia lands with a French army, Edgar saves Gloucester from despair at an imagined cliff and kills Oswald, and the mad Lear wakes at last in Cordelia's care.

Discussion questions

1. Why does Edgar not reveal himself to his father?
2. What sense is there in Lear's madness?
3. How does the reunion of Lear and Cordelia compare with the love test in Act 1?

Escape room: Every Inch a King (lockedlessons.com/rooms/king-lear-act-4/)

Week 5: Act 5

Read: Act 5

Goneril and Regan compete for Edmund, the battle is lost and Lear and Cordelia are captured, and Edmund secretly orders their deaths. Edgar defeats Edmund in single combat, Goneril poisons Regan and kills herself, and Edmund's change of heart comes too late to save Cordelia; Lear dies over her body.

Discussion questions

1. Why does Edmund try to undo his order at the end?
2. Does the ending give any comfort, or none?
3. Who is left to rule, and what does that say about the play?

Escape room: The Promised End (lockedlessons.com/rooms/king-lear-act-5/)