Much Ado About Nothing Close Reading Analysis Worksheets and Answer Keys Bundle

Challenge high school students to go beyond basic reading comprehension and exercise close reading analysis skills while engaging with Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare. Each close reading activity is rigorous enough for students to find deeper meaning in the text, yet convenient enough for teachers to efficiently gather data on their students' textual analysis skills. Included are seventeen close reading worksheets, each addressing an individual scene, and answer keys. Materials are delivered in Word Document and PDF formats. (Alternatively, a Google Drive bundle option is available.) By the end of the play, students will:

• Read for literal comprehension

• Define complex words as they are used in the text

• Examine nuances in words with similar meanings

• Delve into the methods by which Shakespeare achieved narrative effects such as tension and comic relief

• Describe tone in context

• Explore how complex characters think, behave, develop, and interact

• Compare and contrast several characters

• Conduct brief research on the four humors of classical Greek medicine to facilitate an evaluation of Benedick's condition midway through the play

• Apply knowledge of literary devices including metaphor, simile, hyperbole, allusion, malapropism, personification, paradox, invective, oxymoron, symbolism, dramatic irony, situational irony, verbal irony, and more

• Discern the functions of given passages

• Compare elements of one scene with those of another

• Support claims and inferences with sound reasoning and relevant textual evidence

• Write about Shakespearean drama with clarity, accuracy, and precision

Materials are available for teaching a variety of Shakespeare's plays:

• Hamlet - Google and printable

• Julius Caesar - Google and printable

• King Lear - Google and printable

• Macbeth - Google and printable

• Othello - Google and printable

• Romeo and Juliet - Google and printable

• The Merchant of Venice - Google and printable

• The Taming of the Shrew - Google and printable

• The Tempest - Google and printable