The ever-popular "Hamlet Trial" has become something of a rite of passage for senior English students at The Marin School. The extended project assignment, devised and guided by English IV teacher and department chair Kieran Ridge, asks students to play out a hypothetical trial in which the younger Hamlet tries to pin his father's murder on his uncle-cum-stepfather, Claudius. Students must form teams of characters from the play. For instance, Hamlet, Ophelia, Horatio and the grave-digger might comprise the prosecution, with Claudius, Gertrude and Polonius as the defense. Their pre-trial preparations involve close study of the text in order to gather evidence, which they present to a jury of faculty members in a mock trial. The overall exercise fosters not only detailed textual work, but also teamwork, time management and presentational skills.
Most prosecuting teams are unable to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Claudius was indeed the killer, because most of the evidence against him is ultimately circumstantial. Could you read the text and find the key to a conviction?
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