Quote:
Originally Posted by issybird
So much for shared culture and reference points! Obviously I’m old school, but I think kids should be reading in school books they wouldn’t necessarily read on their own, for the reasons of shared culture and learning how to approach and appreciate more difficult texts. School is not for fun, nor for giving kids what they want. They can read carp on their own time.  |
I agree. After having to trudge through Shakespear myself, and having had kids go through that phase, I do think he has a place in literature, and kids should be introduced to his works.
Not just the themes, but the fact that so many of them are universal, and ongoing, in humanity. One of the things that so many of the other kids in my class in high school were surprised by was the fact that those who lived all those years ago weren't all that different from them. That hundreds of years haven't changed people that much, when it comes to a lot of life.
(I saw Romeo and Juliet as a play during that time, put on by high school students in a professional setting. There were tweaks, and I can still remember the intake of breath and the quiet hush in the huge theater when the opposing groups faced off at the start, and the leader on one side flipped off the leader on the other side. Everyone GOT it. Shit was going to go down, and the words took on a more meaning in that context.)
And the language changes caused a lot of questions. When did it change so much? Why? How? Which led to a lot of questions about how languages do change, and context can completely flip the meaning of dialog and described actions. Which brought on conversations about how modern language grows and changes, and how important context is even now.
Nothing brings that up and throws it in your face as having to try to translate olde English into modern English.
And that idea that languages change, drastically over time, is one I think is valuable, and a good thing to be introduced to students. It really drives it home when you have to struggle with translating it. Especially when so many historical stories *don't* present the language realistically, for our reading pleasure. I think it's good to, at least once, to see the real use of period-correct language. Even if we avoid it later.