Shaking up Shakespeare
Madeline kays
"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players." --As You Like It, Act Two, Scene Seven There are two things that one cannot deny about William Shakespeare; he is a literary giant, and he is detested by the majority of high school students. The most common approach to discussing Shakespeare in any high school classroom is to sit students down with a script (typically Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet) and read aloud. Or, God forbid, silently. Students struggle with the language, and with reading aloud because of the format and the old fashioned language. Teachers rarely approach pronunciation or tackle the words themselves, focusing solely on plot line and analysis of the story. This provides many places for students to stumble--if no one tells them that each line is not a sentence, they will read it as though it were.
Shaking Up Shakespeare is a different approach to reading and studying Shakespeare. The SUS method approaches the writing before students even get into the text itself. SUS includes a handout on the punctuation in Shakespeare and how to read it, along with comparisons between modern editions and First Folio scripts. When its time for students to read the play, teachers take the play scene by scene, reading the key scenes aloud in class and assigning the minor scenes as at home reading so that students never have to tackle the heaviest materials on their own. When reading aloud in class, SUS has students physically interacting with the text. That's right, forget sitting down. Names are drawn for various roles and the remaining students are to follow along, or welcome to listen and watch only as those who are drawn (or volunteered) enact the script. By engaging with more than just their voices, the students are brought into the text. Also, Shakespeare wrote plays. Which are meant to be heard and seen. |
Shakespeare and punctuation
Period (.) A period is a full and complete stop. Think of it as a red light.
Infrequent commas (,) A comma is a slight pause. It's a change in the way that the character is thinking.
Repeated commas (,) Repeated commas increase the emotional intensity of the text. Build up the rhythmic intensity as well as the emotion.
Colon (:) A colon signals that the next line is a response to the previous line.
Semi-colon (;) a continuation of thought, an explanation.
Infrequent commas (,) A comma is a slight pause. It's a change in the way that the character is thinking.
Repeated commas (,) Repeated commas increase the emotional intensity of the text. Build up the rhythmic intensity as well as the emotion.
Colon (:) A colon signals that the next line is a response to the previous line.
Semi-colon (;) a continuation of thought, an explanation.
Reflection
I spent this term observing two sophomore English classes at Gladstone High School. It was an experience that reminded me not only of why I would never want to be a teenager again, but also why I want to teach high school so badly. My personal high school experience was a bit of a wreck, with its highs and lows as most high school experiences go, but my teachers were part of the highs. Watching Ms. Carlson, the teacher who I was observing these past ten weeks, and how she attempted to interact with each student on an individual level, checking in with different kids, offering guidance and extra help outside of class time, was an experience I would repeat in a heart beat. I got to know some of the students, and talking with them about their views on what was happening inside the classroom fueled my desire to finish school and step up to the education bat. Shaking Up Shakespeare is something that I hope plan to incorporate into my own teaching experiences. I look forward to implementing SUS, and to being a teacher.