Introduction

Use this Real-Life Lens Plan to help students dive deep into Shakespeare’s King Lear and examine the play’s themes, action, and characters through the lens of parents and children. They will explore how the members of two families, King Lear’s and Gloucester’s, interact with each other and what those interactions suggest to readers about parents and children in general. Students will relate their observations and conclusions to their own personal experiences and what they learn about parenting from outside sources.

Materials

  • King Lear by William Shakespeare
    Buy Now

Introduce the Lens

To activate students’ thinking, choose one or two of the following Real-Life Links to use in an engagement activity. Have students read or watch and discuss the content. Encourage students to jot down notes, or record class notes on the board for future reference.

Pose the Following Big Idea Questions to the Class:

What do parents and children owe one another? 

How do relationships between parents and children change over time?

Engagement Activity 

1. Have students write quick initial answers to the questions.

2. Discuss, either as a class or in small groups. Prompt students to name and list many different examples of parents, blended families, nontraditional families, and even one-of-a-kind families.

3. Encourage students to compare and contrast how different parents and children interact.

4. Following discussion, give students time to revise their initial responses, and ask volunteers to share what they wrote with the class.

CCSS

Introduce the Driving Questions

Begin by having students write their own questions about the lesson topic. Encourage them to think about what they already know about parents and children and what they are interested in exploring further. 

Hand out the Driving Questions Worksheet. Review the questions as a class. Students should enter initial answers to the questions after they read Acts 1 and 2 of King Lear. Then, they will revisit the questions and write new answers after they read the entire play. Remind students to support their responses with text evidence. 

Integrate the Driving Questions into your classroom discussions. Use them to help guide students’ thinking about the Big Idea Questions.

1. Lear is the protagonist. Is there a hero? Is there a villain? Give evidence. 

2. Was it a good idea for Lear to give away his land in Act 1, Scene 1? Why or why not?  

3. What are the parallels between the main plot and subplot of King Lear? 

4. What mistakes does Lear make as a parent? 

5. How do Lear’s three daughters react to their father’s transfer of land?  

6. How and why does Gloucester treat his two sons so differently?  

7. Do the children in the play treat their fathers with respect?  

8. Does the Fool help Lear be a better father? If so, how?

CCSS

Introduce the "Through the Lens" Activity

Activity: A Tale of Two Families 

Explain that all the action of King Lear revolves around the dynamics of two families: King Lear’s and Gloucester’s. Lear has three daughters. Gloucester has two sons, one of them—Edmund—born “out of wedlock,” a fact that makes Edmund a “bastard.” Read aloud (or have a student read) Gloucester’s explanation of Edmund’s birth in 1.1.15-23 (No Fear edition). Then, share Lear’s speech in 1.1.34-48 (No Fear edition), an action that catapults the plot into chaos. These two realities set up the two main plot lines of the play. 

Then ask students to describe the parents and children in their own families, sticking to the facts. Allow the class to observe, without judgment, the variety of examples among them, which may include stepchildren, half-siblings, guardians, blended families, single parents, and/or only children. If you feel your students will be uncomfortable explaining their families or living situations, simply provide statistics about family structures in the United States. The U.S. Census Bureau has numerous tables available online that you can share. Explain that each family, including those in the play, has unique relationships, strengths, and weaknesses. Have students brainstorm as a class what some of these strengths and weaknesses are and make a list on the board. 

As students read King Lear, they will make observations to draw conclusions about the two families and to make comparisons and contrasts with their own families. This includes how parents and children treat one another, their mutual responsibilities, and the damage and pain they can cause.

CCSS

Differentiated Instruction

This activity can be modified to help all students access learning.
Decrease difficulty

Present students with, and make sure they understand, terms used to describe familial relationships such as nuclear family, single parent, stepparent/stepchild, legal guardian, grandparent/grandchild, family-in-law, half-siblings, consanguinity and affinity, adoption, divorce, emancipation, estrangement, disownment, disinheritance, widowhood, and caregiver.

Increase difficulty

Have students write short essays or draw family trees that present the facts about their own families. Ask two or three students to present their drawings or writing to the class and proceed with discussion as outlined above.

Introduce the Final Project

Before moving on, introduce the final projects to the class (see below for details). Have students choose the project they will complete and encourage them to keep their project in mind as they read the text. Facilitate the formation of project groups if necessary.

Assign the Midpoint Activities

Activity 1: Deceits Within the Family 

As in many of Shakespeare’s plays, King Lear is full of tricks, disguises, and lies. Parents mistrust their children and children deceive their parents. It’s a vicious cycle of untruths and half-truths, trust, mistrust, love, resentment, uncertainty, and lies. 

Have students use the Deceits Within the Family Worksheet to explore two blatant disguises and/or lies perpetrated by children in King Lear. Then, students will add another example of their choice.  

After they have filled in the chart, student pairs (or small groups) can use their charts to answer and discuss these questions: How and why do children pretend to be something they are not in front of their parents in King Lear? In general, how and why do children pretend to be something they are not in front of their parents?

CCSS

Differentiated Instruction

This activity can be modified to help all students access learning.
Decrease difficulty

Model this activity for students by analyzing Edgar’s disguise as Poor Tom as a class, focusing on Act 2, Scene 3. Use the sample answers from the worksheet as a basis for your discussion. Suggest that Edmund stabbing himself is another example of a lie that students could use to complete their charts.

Increase difficulty

Challenge students to flip their analysis around, analyzing whether and how the parents (Lear and Gloucester) deceive their children in a similar chart. Then have students write a paragraph answering: What are the consequences when parents are dishonest with their children?

Activity 2: A Mélange of Metaphors and Similes 

Shakespeare’s language is full of metaphors and similes about children and parents, such as one of the most famous lines of the play:

How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is
To have a thankless child.

(No Fear: 1.4.281–2) 

Other metaphors aren’t as explicit, such as the implicit metaphors listed below. Explore each passage with the class, identifying the tenor (the literal noun) and the vehicle (the figurative noun) of each. Note: You may need to review metaphor and simile and the difference between them before beginning passage analysis. 

It may help for you to write each example on the board and label each noun as students respond. In the first example, the “thankless child” is the tenor and the “sharpness of the serpent’s tooth” is the vehicle. In the next example, “my sometime daughter” is like (as though) “the barbarous Scythian.” Have students discuss or write about what figurative meaning each figure of speech conveys, and then evaluate each example’s effectiveness on a 1–5 scale with 5 being the most effective.  

The barbarous Scythian,
Or he that makes his generation messes
To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom
Be as well neighbored, pitied, and relieved
As thou my sometime daughter.
(No Fear: 1.1.117–121)

Do, kill thy physician, and the fee bestow
Upon thy foul disease.
(No Fear: 1.1.167–168)

Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides
(No Fear: 1.1.289)

We must do something, and i’ th’ heat.
(No Fear: 1.1.315)

Prompt students to locate and note more outright metaphors, implicit metaphors, and similes as they read Acts 4–5.  

Finally, invite students to write metaphors and similes about their own families. Prompt them with sentence stems such as “My mother/father/guardian is a _________,” “My family is like a ___________,” or “In our family, parenting is like a _________.”

CCSS

Final Projects

Students will work on their final projects after they have finished reading the complete text of King Lear. Project 1 requires students to work as individuals or in pairs. Project 2 requires students to work in pairs or small groups. Project 1 is analytical in nature, while Project 2 is creative.

Final Project 1: Write an Academic Essay 

Students will write formal essays of 500–600 words titled “Parents and Children in King Lear” to submit to a fictional literary magazine for teenagers called Shakespeare Today. 

In their essays, students will include: 

  • at least one accompanying image 

  • at least three citations of literary criticism 

  • at least one modern theory or idea about parenting  

  • their own personal experience, and/or another modern example as a contrast to what happens in the play 


Suggest to students that they return to the Big Idea Questions as a way to focus or inspire their ideas and evidence. You can support your class as much as needed, helping to develop thesis statements, assigning a specific prompt to respond to, etc.

Differentiated Instruction

This activity can be modified to help all students access learning.
Decrease difficulty

Have students work in pairs with one focused on “Parents in King Lear” and the other focused on “Children in King Lear.” They can combine their writing into one longer essay that meets the criteria above. Remind them to use transitional words and phrases to connect the parts and to write an introductory paragraph and conclusion that blends their ideas.

Increase difficulty

Encourage students to prepare their critical essays for submission, following criteria, to a real literary journal for young writers.

Final Project 2: What If? 

Ask students: What if the children and parents in King Lear had not died?  

Challenge pairs or groups of students to write an additional scene focused on forgiveness, peace, and reconciliation between one of Lear’s daughters and Lear or between Edmund or Edgar and Gloucester. In their responses, students should emulate Shakespeare’s language and style. Ask them to include at least one symbolic image that represents the newly discovered peace.  

Have students perform dramatic readings of their original scenes. Have listeners discuss: What does this scene suggest about parents and children? Is it plausible? Why or why not?

Differentiated Instruction

This activity can be modified to help all students access learning.
Decrease difficulty

Begin with a discussion of the words forgiveness and reconciliation. Encourage students to define them in their own words and share examples from personal experience. Are there any examples of these emotions between parents and children in King Lear? If so, what allowed them to happen? Brainstorm possible foundations for the new scenes to get students started.

Increase difficulty

Challenge students to write their new scene in both the styles of the “Original Text” and the “Modern Text” of the No Fear Edition.

CCSS

Assess the Assignment

Use the Rubric for Student Assessment to evaluate student work on the lesson assignments. 

Distribute the Student Reflection Worksheet. Guide students through the self-assessment and reflection questions.

Downloads