How I managed to bypass all of high school and three years of college without having a single piece of Shakespeare’s works is beyond me. So here begins my delayed introduction. I first thought I should get some background knowledge of Romeo and Juliet in its original form, rather than just taking my first interpretation from the magna version only, so I checked out a version from the library. When I started reading the original, I quickly noticed I had to substitute a lot of the “F’s” for “S’s, and “V’s” with “U’s” and so forth. So stuck, unknowingly, with the most primitive version of the play out there, it made for a very long read, and I often had a vague idea of what was going on. I thank the magna version for clearing all of those ambiguities up. And I cannot say much about the magna other than the fact that I really enjoyed it for the effects the illustrations played in supplementing the emotion and pace of the reading. I thought how useful this would be in the classroom for getting the students acquainted with Shakespeare’s work in the sense that they would be familiar with the characters, plot and so on, and most importantly, having a fun time with Shakespeare. From there, we could then transition into picking out some passages from the original play for analysis, or if time permits, read the play in its entirety.
Given I have so little background about Shakespeare and his works in general, I chose the article, “Goals and Limits in Student Performance of Shakespeare” by Charles Frey, wherein he discusses approaches he found most appropriate for students’ involvement with Shakespeare. He specifies that conventional methods in teaching Shakespeare only orient students with the task interpreting the work the way the teacher wants them to, or a certain critic. Rather than letting the students be the recipients of instruction, he structures his semester around having students first learn the bare essentials of the plot, characters, “unusual syntactical groupings . . . complexity of sentence[s]”, and so forth. From there, Frey then breaks down his class into small groups where each group is designated a particular passage they would prepare to act out. He finds collaborative efforts make for the best learning, and when students are asked to act out a scene, he finds they are usually passionate about making a genuine performance. What can I conclude from his approach? I like it. I like that he is concerned about a taking the time to have students fully comprehend the grammar and unfamiliar syntactical patterns of words before moving on to a group based project. And from the small scenes that are acted out, students are taught how tone, emotion and other theatrical conventions are employed to gain a better appreciation and understanding of Shakespeare’s work.
"He finds collaborative efforts make for the best learning, and when students are asked to act out a scene, he finds they are usually passionate about making a genuine performance."
ReplyDeleteThis is exactly what my 9th grade teacher did when I was in her class. Everyone loved it. I believe this does help to make an enjoyable experience with Shakespeare.
You said you read the Manga after you read the original version of Romeo and Juliet, and it made a lot more sense. Maybe if we have students read the Manga alongside the original, like after each scene, the action will be clarified throughout for them. This will prevent confusion until the very end of the play.
ReplyDeleteI'm impressed that you've made it this far without reading one of those dreaded plays. Anyways, if the Manga connect the dots for you than it will for our students too. Another aspect that should be incorportated is adding a movie or play, because essentially they are written for that purpose.
ReplyDeleteI definitely feel as if using illustrated version of Shakespeare could be helpful for our students because some of the language is difficult to understand. More modernized versions of Shakespeare are of course available, but I feel as if the language is a vital part of Shakespeare, so instead of losing it completely, teaching it alongside a manga version will help student comprehension as well as give them an idea of what Shakespeare was all about.
ReplyDelete"Rather than letting the students be the recipients of instruction, he structures his semester around having students first learn the bare essentials of the plot, characters, “unusual syntactical groupings . . . complexity of sentence[s]”, and so forth. From there, Frey then breaks down his class into small groups where each group is designated a particular passage they would prepare to act out. He finds collaborative efforts make for the best learning, and when students are asked to act out a scene, he finds they are usually passionate about making a genuine performance."
ReplyDeleteThis is in the same vein as the articles I read. In "Teaching Shakespeare Against the Grain," Ron Strickland argued that students benefit tremendously from the use of outside texts (i.e. supplemental materials, in addition to the actual play) in learning and actually appreciating Shakespeare. He also argued that it makes more sense - at any level (high school or college, where he taught) - to study a smaller number of actual texts in greater depth than to progress through a larger number of texts without real scrutiny. I fully agree with this, and so must the author of your article, for to complete the excellent tasks he discusses would take time and devotion be given to one play.
We have discussed a lot whether it might be beneficial to introduce outside texts or adaptations of the play before introducing the actual play, and have come up with no satisfactory answer. I think your author here hits it: spend some time introducing the plot, the characters, even the language before delving deeply into an actual reading of the play. Then, when you do, collaboratively, you'll have some real foundation. And perhaps students will even love it, and an eventual production will be both truly enjoyable and deeply enlightening and educational.
Although as a college student, it must feel good to have breezed through with out encountering Shakespeare, you have to want for your students to not end up like this. This is more of a reason to enjoy shakespeare and do fun and engaging activities with your students because you do not want you students to have little background with Shakespeare.. (I have similiar encounters with Shak, but did have to read a little of him, so I feel the same way)
ReplyDeleteDenny, I appreciated your post because honestly I am sure (well maybe, ok, I'm not so sure) that I must have had some sort of Shakespeare teaching in previous years, prior to my Shakespeare class this semester and the required reading for this class, I cannot recall really familiarizing myself with Shakespeare either. If we are supposed to teach Shakespeare, then I pray to God that the way we teach it has some sort of "staying power". The article you reference sounds great as a grounded foundation to build upon. Too many times we jump right into the text without any knowledge of things like syntactical structure, language, etc. Aren't those the things that make Shakespeare so scary? If we can effectively lay the foundation, reading the text will look far easier and who knows maybe the students will be excited about it. (we can hope can't we..lol)
ReplyDeleteI love Nicole's idea of co-reading the two texts. I think that would definately make it make more sense to the students.
ReplyDeleteI'm still shocked that this was your firsy encounter with Shakespeare. The idea of using the illistrated versions in the class will clear up any holes the students may be feeling about ANY Shakespeare texts.
Wow... find it hard to believe you didn't encounter Shakespeare until now. Thanks for the write-up on your experience. Although I'm not a huge fan of the manga by itself, could be interesting to supplement reading the play as you did (and clearly helped).
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