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Reading schedule · Grades 8–12

A Midsummer Night's Dream in 5 Weeks: A Reading Schedule

A five-week plan for reading Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, 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 A Midsummer Night's Dream

Week 1: Act 1

Read: Act 1

Theseus and Hippolyta prepare for their wedding when Egeus demands that his daughter Hermia marry Demetrius or face the law of Athens. Hermia and Lysander plan to run away through the wood, Helena, who loves Demetrius, decides to tell him, and a group of workmen share out the parts of a play for the wedding.

Discussion questions

1. How fair is the law of Athens to Hermia, and what choices does Theseus give her?
2. Why does Helena betray her friend's secret?
3. What do we learn about Bottom from the way he wants every part?

Escape room: Four Happy Days (lockedlessons.com/rooms/midsummer-nights-dream-act-1/)

Week 2: Act 2

Read: Act 2

In the wood Oberon and Titania quarrel over a changeling boy, and Oberon sends Robin for a flower whose juice makes a sleeper love the next creature seen. Oberon enchants Titania and orders Robin to charm Demetrius, who is cruel to Helena, but Robin anoints Lysander instead.

Discussion questions

1. How does the fairies' quarrel affect the human world?
2. Is Oberon kind or cruel in his use of the flower?
3. Why does Robin's mistake happen so easily?

Escape room: The Magic Flower (lockedlessons.com/rooms/midsummer-nights-dream-act-2/)

Week 3: Act 3

Read: Act 3

Robin gives Bottom an ass's head during the workmen's rehearsal, and Titania wakes and dotes on him. Oberon tries to put things right, but now both young men love Helena, the four lovers quarrel bitterly, and Robin leads them apart through the fog until they sleep.

Discussion questions

1. Why does Helena think everyone is mocking her?
2. How does Bottom behave towards Titania, and what makes the scene funny?
3. Who is to blame for the confusion among the lovers?

Escape room: Lord, What Fools (lockedlessons.com/rooms/midsummer-nights-dream-act-3/)

Week 4: Act 4

Read: Act 4

Oberon releases Titania from the spell and they are reconciled. Theseus's hunting party finds the lovers at dawn, now happily paired, and overrules Egeus; Bottom wakes alone, wonders at his dream and returns to his friends in time for the play.

Discussion questions

1. Why does Theseus overrule Egeus now when he would not before?
2. Should Demetrius's love for Helena count as real if it comes from the flower?
3. What does Bottom make of his dream?

Escape room: A Most Rare Vision (lockedlessons.com/rooms/midsummer-nights-dream-act-4/)

Week 5: Act 5

Read: Act 5

Theseus muses on lovers, madmen and poets and chooses the workmen's play of Pyramus and Thisbe for the wedding night. The courtiers mock the performance, the workmen dance a Bergomask, and the fairies bless the house before Robin asks the audience to think of it all as a dream.

Discussion questions

1. What does the play of Pyramus and Thisbe have in common with the story of the lovers?
2. How do the courtiers treat the workmen, and how should we judge them?
3. What is the effect of Robin's closing speech?

Escape room: If We Shadows (lockedlessons.com/rooms/midsummer-nights-dream-act-5/)