How to Teach Shakespeare Today--According to someone who has never taught it
After our conversation this week in class, I really started to think about how do we teach Shakespeare in today's secondary English classroom. Times have definitely changed from over 400 years ago when Shakespeare wrote all of his plays. Going off of Jasmine's post of What to Teach? it really started to hit me that I have no clue how to teach Shakespeare for many different reasons.
The first problem I noticed was that today's students are not interested in learning about Shakespeare. They would much rather read something they relate to and can easily comprehend. While in our groups yesterday, I made the comment that the thing I am most worried about when it comes to teaching Shakespeare is how to get my students interested in it. Wanting to teach middle school I will most likely not teach his works, but if I were to be at a high school there is a good chance I will have to teach it eventually. From my experience working with students and from my own experiences when it came to reading in middle and high school, I know it is often hard to find something that students are interested in reading. I completely stopped reading for enjoyment when I was in middle school because I could not find anything that I was interested in reading. It took until my Junior year of high school for me to go back to reading for enjoyment. So how exactly do we teach something that is over 400 years old, hard to comprehend, and that most students will ultimately find boring. As a high school student, the only work of Shakespeare's that I was even remotely interested in reading was Romeo and Juliet, and that was because it was a "romantic" play and that was in my interest area. But teaching up to 120 students a day, how do we hit all of their interests? Some people may disagree, but modernizing the plays will make them easier for students to not only comprehend but also relate to. It's simple to look up a YouTube video of a scene and show it to students. I know for myself as a college student sometimes looking up a scene on YouTube helps me understand it better. Another resource that can really help students understand Shakespeare's work better is using websites like SparkNotes or Shmoop, which summarize the plays by acts and scenes. I would not say use that for every single reading as students may rely more on those summaries instead of actually reading. As Nic said in class yesterday, "If I can't put [Shakespeare] in relatable terminology, it will be impossible [to teach to someone who doesn't care to learn it]". We as teachers must be able to relate Shakespeare to our students and make it something they will actually want to read.
Another topic that we talked about in class this week really made me think of another problem when it comes to teaching Shakespeare. It is no secret that Shakespeare wrote generally for a white audience. Most of his plays have very little people of color, and as a future teacher I question how I am supposed to relate a play about a bunch of white men to a diverse group of teenagers? One thing that I have heard said a lot is to not shy away from this topic of race and gender. In The Merchant of Venice, Solanio and Salerio as well as many other characters call Shylock a "Jew" many times. In today's standards, this would not be accepted at all. I think teaching our students that this is not okay today as well as sharing why they did in the play is how to best treat this issue. If we try to shy away from the topic, we would be whitewashing the works and ignoring an important topic. We need to embrace the changes that have come since these works were published and talk about the why. Don't shy away from these topics because they may make your students more interested in reading.
Now, these are just a couple of ideas I have had after some classroom conversations. They may work, they may not. Either way, they are some good topics to think about.
Jasmine's Post: https://wushax.blogspot.com/2019/02/what-to-teach.html
The first problem I noticed was that today's students are not interested in learning about Shakespeare. They would much rather read something they relate to and can easily comprehend. While in our groups yesterday, I made the comment that the thing I am most worried about when it comes to teaching Shakespeare is how to get my students interested in it. Wanting to teach middle school I will most likely not teach his works, but if I were to be at a high school there is a good chance I will have to teach it eventually. From my experience working with students and from my own experiences when it came to reading in middle and high school, I know it is often hard to find something that students are interested in reading. I completely stopped reading for enjoyment when I was in middle school because I could not find anything that I was interested in reading. It took until my Junior year of high school for me to go back to reading for enjoyment. So how exactly do we teach something that is over 400 years old, hard to comprehend, and that most students will ultimately find boring. As a high school student, the only work of Shakespeare's that I was even remotely interested in reading was Romeo and Juliet, and that was because it was a "romantic" play and that was in my interest area. But teaching up to 120 students a day, how do we hit all of their interests? Some people may disagree, but modernizing the plays will make them easier for students to not only comprehend but also relate to. It's simple to look up a YouTube video of a scene and show it to students. I know for myself as a college student sometimes looking up a scene on YouTube helps me understand it better. Another resource that can really help students understand Shakespeare's work better is using websites like SparkNotes or Shmoop, which summarize the plays by acts and scenes. I would not say use that for every single reading as students may rely more on those summaries instead of actually reading. As Nic said in class yesterday, "If I can't put [Shakespeare] in relatable terminology, it will be impossible [to teach to someone who doesn't care to learn it]". We as teachers must be able to relate Shakespeare to our students and make it something they will actually want to read.
Another topic that we talked about in class this week really made me think of another problem when it comes to teaching Shakespeare. It is no secret that Shakespeare wrote generally for a white audience. Most of his plays have very little people of color, and as a future teacher I question how I am supposed to relate a play about a bunch of white men to a diverse group of teenagers? One thing that I have heard said a lot is to not shy away from this topic of race and gender. In The Merchant of Venice, Solanio and Salerio as well as many other characters call Shylock a "Jew" many times. In today's standards, this would not be accepted at all. I think teaching our students that this is not okay today as well as sharing why they did in the play is how to best treat this issue. If we try to shy away from the topic, we would be whitewashing the works and ignoring an important topic. We need to embrace the changes that have come since these works were published and talk about the why. Don't shy away from these topics because they may make your students more interested in reading.
Now, these are just a couple of ideas I have had after some classroom conversations. They may work, they may not. Either way, they are some good topics to think about.
Jasmine's Post: https://wushax.blogspot.com/2019/02/what-to-teach.html
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