Should high school students have to read Shakespeare?

[Harmon]

[QUOTE=Prestidigitweeze;1464300]

"In his own write," if so intended, is a joke of John Lennon's. Odd to see it here. Much ado about "noting"? I'd assume you were making the same joke Shakespeare did throughout that play...

How so - is a script not a writing? Does it not involve noting? And if Shakespeare makes an extended pun, shall I not extended clear outside the play?

...if you hadn't followed it with the malapropism "all roads lead to Room." But perhaps you're making a pun about the size of the stage.

No malappropriation. "Rome" was pronounced "Room" in Shakespeare's day. Learned that, IIRC, in a broadcast involving a snippet of Mark Rylance's (?) production of an original language version of one of the plays. The original language being more like Irish English than Anglo English. The point being that you hear this.

Which, again, is most efficiently and exhaustively done by studying the plays, the annotations and the historical background. You're making a very good case for the importance of reading Shakespeare.

Yes, indeed, but the case which is made is to read in support of the performance, not in preference to it.

By "country matters," you might mean the ways in which dialects, visual cues such as flags, customs, pageantries and even gestures are associated during the performance with distinct and recognizable places.

Not at all. Although I would have meant that, too, if I had thought of it. I intended only to point out that Shakespeare's pun, while evident in the writing, is amplified by the performance. A straight face to the lady in question, followed by a sly look to the audience. Maybe an appropriate inappropriate gesture as well.

Some playwrights write less and imply a myriad of interpretations, leaving it to the actors to imply more than is apparent. But Shakespeare's directions are clear in the very lines the actors speak, which means they are clear to readers as well: In that way, his plays are quite self-contained.

I don't buy that. Shakespeare was present at the rehearsals. He didn't need to write down the stage directions. I'm sure he gave the stage directions at the rehearsals, that he made up a lot of them as he went along, changed his mind from performance to performance based on audience reaction, that the actors had their own ideas, and that the resulting production - as with every production - was a joint effort grounded in the text, but in actuality an outcome with many creators.

Few performances I've seen have come close to the transports of reading him (and with that, many actors would agree).

That's your experience, which you are entitled to, of course. Mine has been that practically any performance transcends the script.

If all you do is read the plays, you only get hold of part of the elephant.

Let me remind you of something you said earlier: "What's 'dishonest' is to say people are making an argument that they are not actually making."

I'm sure you can read better than that. I'm pretty sure I wrote better...

"(As for the difference between theatre & literature, I suggest that literature requires no enactment to be complete."

That is a very unusual definition of literature, and it is not borne out by the ideas of many playwrights.

What playwright writes and does not envision the performance? Now, I can imagine a work of literature presented in the form of a script, just as one can be presented in the form of letters. But no one need to perform that script to complete the work of art.

A script intended to be performed is incomplete without that performance. Surely a performance is not literature. So how can something which is more than the script not be literature, while the script, subsumed in the performance, is?

Let's look again at the original post:

It turns out that they never actually read the real play! Not even a snippet of it. They saw the modern movie, they read a graphic novel adaptation and that was it! Am I the only one who thinks that is completely wrong? We read a play a year---the REAL version--when I went through high school. It was part of the curriculum. I understand not everyone is a literature nerd and some kids might find the language quaint. I can understand hooking them in with Leonardo DiCaprio. But then after that, you give them the real play, no?

Notice that the assumption here is that the "real play" is the written play. I continue to believe that the real play is the performance, not the script. And truthfully, I'd give students the graphic novel before I gave them the bare script, assuming that the GA faithfully replicated some version of the script. They would be much more likely to actually read the GA.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

You know, I kind of think you're illustrating Harmon's point . . . "Country matters" is a sex joke from Hamlet. . . . For all your advocacy of emphasizing the simple reading of the plays* as the overriding primary experience, and all your erudition in identifying the other allusions referenced in that post, you seem to have not picked up this fairly basic bit of works-great-on-stage wordplay.

The only point you've proved is that reading the plays does not guarantee total recollection of every line of every play. We'd been talking about JC and I wasn't focusing on Hamlet.

The problem with the point you're trying to make is that it hinges on the idea I've misinterpreted a line. What actually happened, and my effort to understand your friend on his terms makes this clear, is I'd failed to recognize the quote out of context. You're not making a case for the theater versus the page, you're only pointing out that my memory is fallible, and that I'm not googling for answers.

I hold no one at fault for what they might forget. I do hold students responsible for what they refuse to attempt.

When I first read your argument, my first impulse was to complain that the line was difficult to identify because of the usage: "country matters are more clear" as opposed to the meaning of the phrase 'country matters' is more clear."

But that wouldn't be a fair argument for me to make. If that were really true, then you wouldn't have identified the phrase, either.

I'd like to be able to say you'd been disrespectful in using the phrase "for all your erudition," but the truth is, you weren't. Such phrases are usually accompanied by sweeping anti-intellectual put-downs, but you managed to sidestep the temptation gracefully. Props for that.

Every time I see his name, I'm tempted to declaim "Will nobody rid me of this turbulent playwright?" And then write a parody I, Godot musical to the tune of the Alan Parsons Project album.

That's only amusing if you're talking to people who hate the idea of high culture in the first place -- and the funny thing is, Beckett himself's in that camp.

Points of contention: Beckett is anything but turbulent, musicals annoy me as much, perhaps, as Beckett annoys you, and the whole bit about defrocking high culture with guitars and synths is a joke that lived and died with 60s pop culture. There is no more ivory tower. Rock has won, professors actually teach Bruce Springsteen, and nearly every corporate billionaire knows how to rock out. It isn't an anti-bourgeois art form any more.

And as a person who made his living in New York for years as a studio keyboardist, I have to say that, for me, there's more music in Endgame than any Alan Parsons piece I've ever heard. I'm not saying you shouldn't like it. I'm saying we disagree.

I'll scan a couple of sample pages when I've got some more free time to demonstrate how they often work quite well by providing pictures to enhance the words

You yourself seem to be illustrating another of your friend's points (sans the dishonesty-in-quotes charge):

Actually, what's "dishonest" is to say people are making an argument that they are not actually making.

It appears you might have misunderstood something I've said several times. The point is not that theatrical versions, films or even comic books should be disallowed or discouraged as artistic experiences. What I'm saying is that students in school should have to read the plays and not simply see them. Of course they can watch performances; of course they can look at whatever other adaptations they like. I can see great incentive for a student to write about a graphic novel adaptation and perhaps go into the differences and parallels between the play and the adaptation. All I'm saying is this: students should be required to read the plays and that should be the focus.

I've made that point several times in my few posts on this thread. I'd respectfully like to know that you actually heard me and weren't continuing to build a case against a point that wasn't mine -- the idea that adaptations were worthless, unhelpful, sacrilegious, etc., etc.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

It appears you might have misunderstood something I've said several times: The point is not that theatrical versions, films or even comic books should be disallowed or discouraged as artistic experiences. What I'm saying is that students in school should have to read the plays and not simply see them. Of course they can watch performances; of course they can look at whatever other adaptations they like. I can see great incentive for a student to write about a graphic novel adaptation and perhaps go into the differences and parallels between the play and the adaptation. All I'm saying is this: students should be required to read the plays and that should be the focus.

Yes, that is the point you have made. And the one I disagree with, at least at the high school level.

I've made that point several times in my few posts on this thread. I'd respectfully like to know that you actually heard me and weren't continuing to build a case against a point that wasn't mine -- the idea that adaptations were worthless, unhelpful, sacrilegious, etc., etc.

I disagree with the point you haven't made, & gather that you do, as well.

In my view, to read a play is not to read a text. It is to read a script. It takes a performance to make a script come to life. I've watched actors sit around a table and discuss a scene from a Shakespeare play, and have been astounded at how malleable the script is in the hands of someone who knows what he or she is doing with what's written down. It's not a matter of parsing the script. It's a matter of taking the thing & running with it.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Actually, I was speaking to ATDrake just then and then getting back to you, but so much for sequence. Active threads tend to be filled with disjunction.

Originally Posted by Harmon

In my view, to read a play is not to read a text. It is to read a script. It takes a performance to make a script come to life. I've watched actors sit around a table and discuss a scene from a Shakespeare play, and have been astounded at how malleable the script is in the hands of someone who knows what he or she is doing with what's written down. It's not a matter of parsing the script. It's a matter of taking the thing & running with it.

Yes, that is where we disagree strenuously. I could reiterate what I've said about scripts versus plays; you may go back a few posts and read that bit, if you feel inclined. Where a script is collaborative on the level of execution, a play is interpreted. Even if it is written by one person, which it is frequently not, a script for a film functions as an outline which is routinely violated and is usually a mere placeholder for what the cameras, editors, director and the rest will do with the medium and the group (sometimes including the producers) will do with the lines. A theatrical presentation was not as fluid as that even then no matter how expressive and rich with possibilities a play might have proved.

Again, to emphasize the text is not to inhibit, discourage or diminish the actor who plays a part. It is a matter of inhabiting the plays oneself first in order to contextualize the language, the poetry, the structure and what others might do with it.

Here's hoping I get the chance to respond to your previous post before it gets buried by later responses.

[mrscoach]

Let me put in a point that has been completely overlooked on this thread. Teachers have a limited time to teach each section of their class. In Texas it is usually 6 weeks, which is a grading period. Sometimes they can manage more than one section in a grading period. At least as far as teaching English/Literature is concerned.

So, a teacher has six weeks for one of Shakespeare's plays. If they meet every day they usually meet from anywhere between 45 minutes to an hour (usually closer to the 45 minute mark, I believe). If the school is on a block schedule they will have the students every other day for 1 1/2 hours (schools have moved away from this in most of Texas). That is the equivalent of 3.75 hours of class a week, but remember that not all of that time is instruction time. They must also take attendance, take up any homework that was assigned, deal with any other school mandated items, and then try to get the class to start. They must also give feedback on assignments and clarify any points that were missed.

And teachers cannot teach 'bell to bell' because students have to get to the next class, and any end of class chores need to be taken care of (principals say it should be done, but cannot explain how to get everything done while teaching, too). There are also usually some form of disruptions in class, even if it is a student who must be dealt with because of discipline or learning problems, or sheer 'not understanding'.

Pair the short time for instruction with the need to evaulate what is learned (i.e. take grades), and you see a problem arising. Teachers I know hold the movie of any read literature for last, as a reward for getting through the readings. And most schools have to teach highly edited versions of all literature, because of the time constraints I have mentioned.

Why don't the teachers just assign the reading for outside of class and do the instruction only in class? Many try this, but sometimes it is a lack of enough books for the students and so only classroom sets are available, and sometimes it is the impossibility of getting the students to DO the reading.

Also, projects are a way to get the students involved in the learning, so they are doing more than just sitting there like a sponge while a teacher throws water out, hoping the students will soak up some of the knowledge. Research has shown that a multi-prong approach to learning works best, using most of the students senses.

If you have ever tried to teach Shakespeare and explain/translate so a student can understand you would understand how difficult the teachers' job is. Graphic novels are one way to introduce the reading, and hope the student will be hooked enough to pick up the full version some day.

Remember, you can lead a horse to water, and you can even force its head into that water, but you cannot make him drink. You could, however, end up drowning him.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

The only point you've proved is that reading the plays does not guarantee total recollection of every line of every play. We'd been talking about JC and I wasn't focusing on Hamlet.

Hey, I'm just surprised you hadn't picked up on that when you seemed so familiar with Shakespeare in general and easily recognized the other more obscure allusions that were made.

After all, "country matters" seems to be one of the most familiar bits that people reference in relation to Hamlet*. Mind you, it isn't nearly as well-known as "alas poor Yorick", "to be or not to be", or even "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead!", so it probably gets glossed over in the memory

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

That's only amusing if you're talking to people who hate the idea of high culture in the first place -- and the funny thing is, Beckett himself's in that camp.

Points of contention: Beckett is anything but turbulent, musicals annoy me as much, perhaps, as Beckett annoys you, and the whole bit about defrocking high culture with guitars and synths is a joke that lived and died with 60s pop culture.

Why on earth do you assume that Beckett annoys† me? Or that only people who hate the idea of high culture make or appreciate jokes about it?

I've been making bad Shakespeare jokes all week after reading Harry Turtledove's (excellent and recommended) alternate history Shakespeare novel, Ruled Britannia.

And if that means somehow I secretly hate the idea of high culture, then I suppose I'll have to join the haters to the left. Where they are exiting. Pursued by a bear‡.

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

You yourself seem to be illustrating another of your friend's points (sans the dishonesty-in-quotes charge):

Firstly, Harmon is not a friend of mine (not that I have anything against them, just to be clear), either on or off MR. I have made only two "friends" on MR, and they are both listed in my profile.

The only interaction I have ever had with him/her/it was to quote and remark upon those portions of their post that you yourself chose to quote and remark upon in this discussion thread.

Secondly, my "Also, I think there was someone way upthread who asked about what people saw in the graphic novel adaptations?" (emphasis added) was in response to another poster who asked for details about the graphic novel adaptations after I'd been an advocate of their usefulness in my first post on this thread.

It turns out to be this poster (thank you, MR thread search tools which I was too lazy to use this morning):

Originally Posted by spellbanisher

I am curious about the graphic novels that people have mentioned. Do these have the full Shakespearan texts, or are they just abridgments. How do they do the lengthy monologues? Do they break them up into several frames?

I'm sorry you seem to feel that your particular personal viewpoint preferences were being targeted by these unrelated remarks.

But really, it looks like you're being somewhat quick to jump to conclusions and make rather accusatory statements on those bases.

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

I'd respectfully like to know that you actually heard me and weren't continuing to build a case against a point that wasn't mine -- the idea that adaptations were worthless, unhelpful, sacrilegious, etc., etc.

Well, considering that I wasn't ever building a case against your point that the plays should be read as well as experienced through performance/retelling/other media (I did paraphrase your stated reading-the-plays-is-much-more-important preference as being "primarily experienced", rather than "solely"), it might be a bit tricky to assure you that I wasn't "continuing" to build something that I never built in the first place which you have chosen to ascribe to me on shaky foundations.

But yes, you can consider your repeatedly stated opinion heard.

Now if you'll excuse me, I haven't eaten since noon and I'm going to go nuke a mixture of green beans and corn in the microwave and watch my vegetables glow (vaster than empires and more slow, perhaps, if they happen to mutate from it).

* I've read at least three things in the past two months alone which did it: Connie Willis' Ado, Harry Turtledove's Ruled Britannia, and Jo Walton's Ha'penny. There may have been more.

† Possibly Henry II, perhaps. But I'm not Henry the II, I'm not.

Context is for the weak, as scans_daily likes it:

1. Thomas à Becket was the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was pretty much murdered on the plausible-deniability orders of Henry II, whose claim was that some knights overzealously acted on his rhetorical remark asking if no one would rid him of this turbulent priest.
   
   Samuel, a Beckett, is a playwright who is presumably no relation to Thomas.
   
   I leave it as an exercise to the reader to take this priest and this playwright and make a "defrocking" joke that hates the idea of high culture. With guitars and synths.
   
   Make a lovely Canterbury Tale, it would.
2. The Alan Parsons Project did an album based on Isaac Asimov's I, Robot. They also did one based on Edgar Allan Poe.
   
   Presumably in the parody alternaverse where they did one based on Beckett's work instead, the hit single from that would be "I Wouldn't Want to Wait For You".
3. This is what Terry Pratchett calls "a pune, or a play on words".

‡ That bear must be getting pretty tired by now.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Edit: It seems that people are getting rather excited about perceived slights (your lonesome included). This has accelerated to the point that my use of the phrase "your friend" now seems to carry the sting of sarcasm. Truthfully, I only meant to say "your friend" in the rhetorical sense: This person you seem to agree with or happen to be quoting. It wasn't intended to imply forum nepotism (which sounds pathetic anyway). I have a proposal: Instead of assuming the worst about one another's responses, let's assume we're dealing with rather nice people who don't wish to belittle one another but happen to disagree. I take some measure of responsibility for things accelerating to that level, so perhaps it's time I address it and try to change my mode.

How so - is a script not a writing? Does it not involve noting? And if Shakespeare makes an extended pun, shall I not extend [it] clear outside the play?

You can't expect to have your opponent unpack your argument and make it for you. It seems to me your wordplay, however welcome, is obscuring the point you're making -- which is depressing, as wordplay's fun and might have enhanced your point.

I would not expect a reader to understand my references in shorthand even if that person shared those references. It would be like expecting you to know my pet names for my cats because you happened to know pet cats.

If you're saying that scriptwriting and play writing = writing = noting (with a pun on nothing), and that all such aspects lead to the Rome of the room in which the scene's performed, then, no, I'm not convinced you're really telling your joke or poem (though I appreciate the euphony). I'm not sure that "that noting" really refers to the same noting/nothing.

As you probably know, the joke in Shakespeare has to do with writing music, as his jokes often do. The music of the writing and the larger structure, the peal of parallels, are what carry him through the plays:-- music that can find its most resonant cathedral in the silence of one's skull.

"Rome" was pronounced "Room" in Shakespeare's day. Learned that, IIRC, in a broadcast involving a snippet of Mark Rylance's (?) production of an original language version of one of the plays. The original language being more like Irish English than Anglo English. The point being that you hear this.

Point taken.

I could research your references in that paragraph and perhaps find ways to call them into question, but that wouldn't be honest, it could be misleading and it isn't my problem with that bit. It isn't the references themselves, which are often hard-won and do matter. Culture is not a quiz to pass or fail but a dimension to be entered.

The point being that you hear this.

I think we agree on the benefits of actually hearing Shakespeare. Our disagreement lies, I think, in where we choose to hear him.


I replied:

That is a very unusual definition of literature, and it is not borne out by the ideas of many playwrights.

To which you replied:

What playwright writes and does not envision the performance?

It is a mistake to assume that what is meant to be performed cannot be literature. Literature, too, can be intended for performance.

Music that is extremely rich harmonically loses something when its block chords are performed too quickly. Shakespeare is so rich poetically and semantically that no slowing of the tempo can make the levels sufficiently apparent that reading becomes unnecessary.

I hear and recognize your argument that visual and sonic clues enhance the play and provide levels of depth not apparent on the page. But I've answered that already and, besides, that isn't the part of the play with which the student must wrestle.

People talk about writing as if it's pointless to teach if students might miss things. But the best writing is full of things the student might not catch the fourth or fifth time. Who understands Finnegan's Wake the first time they read it, or even the Proteus Chapter of Ulysses even with the annotated Norton version by their side? The culture that spawned such things lies buried neck-deep in what has superseded it, and everyone must create a context for these strange beings we call old books. Odd, that a popular Elizabethan playwright, that even Chaucer and Rabelais, must now be studied like difficult poets. But that is the culture we've inherited, and those writers now offer alternate worlds to the ones in which we live. They are science fiction for the intellect and tongue, and the exercise of reading and understanding them pays off in a new awareness of complexity. One is more awake, more alive, for having read them.

A script intended to be performed is incomplete without that performance.

Rather, a script treated as an outline that can be followed verbatim when necessary. It has become a safety net, since the modern myth is that every director can write.

Surely a performance is not literature. So how can something which is more than the script not be literature, while the script, subsumed in the performance, is?

Shakespeare performed is not "more" than Shakespeare written. They are different facets of the same experience, but only one of those facets is meant for the scrutiny of study.

How is it that students frequently study the sonnets at the same time as the plays? How is it that the poetry, the compression of the sonnets is one with that of the plays? Joyce wrote a glassine play -- Exiles -- and very little else that was after Dubliners. Clearly, he made a distinction between his play and his more difficult work (though all were considered literature by him). Whereas Shakespeare's language is equally poetic in his plays. Even more reason that he should be studied.

Chekov's plays are literature and he thought of them that way -- read his letters. And yet they were meant to be performed.

So how can something which is more than the script not be literature, while the script, subsumed in the performance, is?

Once and for all: play and script are not synonyms. I don't accept that idea because, in my view, it doesn't work. Similarities alone do not make twins.

Notice that the assumption here is that the "real play" is the written play.

I believe the OP's point is that the students truly are being given Shakespeare in the form of a post-production "script" -- a text that has been sliced up, truncated, updated, condensed, Urban-Dictionary'd and otherwise made into something less complex and more familiar. Correct me if I'm dung, but your idea seems to be that to watch a performance of Shakespeare in any form -- simplified, whittled down, caricatured, even bastardized by the former Lion King director until a trained Shakespearean actor becomes so demoralized that he announces he's walking away from his profession -- to see *any* performed version is to be truer to Shakespeare than to read the text. (If that's not an accurate interpretation, feel free to correct me.)

Again, I would argue that that is no way to teach the work. Scholars would disagree, but so, in my experience, would actors. I have yet to meet an actor who didn't revere the act of reading the plays, And I've known too many novelists who make a point of reading through all or certain of the plays regularly to think the correlation could possibly be tangential or pnemonic.

[elcreative]

No ATDrake, bear is very comfortable now he's been rescued as it's incorrect to use animals in this fashion... and I'm sure he'll soon be rehabilitated and released back into the wild...

[spellbanisher]

What the heck, atd, all I did was ask some questions about the graphic novel versions of shakespeare. I hope you misquoted. Either way, I feel like an innocent bystander who has been caught in the crossfire.

[spellbanisher]

The real question, prestigititweeze, is how many readings would it take to understand any of finnegans wake? Even more pertinent, is it possible to truly understand the wake at all?

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by spellbanisher

What the heck, atd, all I did was ask some questions about the graphic novel versions of shakespeare. I hope you misquoted. Either way, I feel like an innocent bystander who has been caught in the crossfire.

Sorry about that. I do apologize*.

ETA: Oops, just realized that I used the generic quote tag for the last thing I quoted and that's probably what you were referring to.

Apologies again. Off to fix.

We now return you to the regularly typed post.
----

Anyway, this is all I actually said about the graphic novels:

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Also, I think there was someone way upthread who asked about what people saw in the graphic novel adaptations? I can't find it now and have some errands to run this afternoon, but I picked up a couple of the GN Shakespeare adaptations from the library.

I'll scan a couple of sample pages when I've got some more free time to demonstrate how they often work quite well by providing pictures to enhance the words (nearly always direct, if selective, actual line reproductions, in case anyone was wondering) in a different, but complementary way to how stage productions and films do it.

Not any attempt to "build a case" against anyone's views at all, only to illustrate what I think you asked about: how much of the text gets used, how do they handle the soliloquies, etc.

* I think I've been caught in the crossfire of whatever's going on between Harmon and Prestidigitweeze.

[Sweetpea]

To answer the original question: NO.

As soon as you force any student to read a book that he doesn't want to read, you're missing the mark. Maybe the teacher should have made a copy of the actual book available for those that did get curious, but that's it.

In my idea, the fact that a classical play was discussed and made a subject for an assignment is a good thing. It will make the student curious and he'll start to read more about it. If he doesn't, he probably wouldn't have done so in the first place. But if you force a book, as a matter of fact, a book they probably have trouble reading in the first place, especially if you do take the "original" language, they'll most likely all lose interest.

When I went to school, we had to read several books of the different periods in the Dutch language. In the original language (from Middle Dutch to modern Dutch). I hated it. And I absolutely adore reading. Only when I had a choice of what books I read (for English), I had fun reading as school assignment.

[Yolina]

I never did Shakespeare at school, but that's because I'm French... we did plenty of Corneille, Racine and Moliere instead It was always the full "proper" text, though we were occasionally treated to a theatre production.

Edit: and in total disagreement with the previous poster, I think students should be made to read classical plays such as Shakespeare or whatever the equivalent for each country is

[Cyberman tM]

Originally Posted by DixieGal

First, forget iambic pentameter, rhyme, poetry, and all, and just read it through as paragraphs, instead of lines of a poem.

While this certainly is very good advice (much better than the later linked article, which, IMO, is quite useless), I tried to do that and failed miserably.

To me, the way text is structured matters almost more than how it is written.
I can work around unknown words(english not being my first language I'm used to this anyway) - I cannot work around anything that breaks the flow. (Which, of course, includes typos. Yet I still make them...)

Writing text
In a way that
Doesn't make it look
Right
Will ruin the flow.

The reason, I believe, is because I tend to subvocalize the text I read. While it may slow me down, it greatly enhances my enjoyment of the text - but at the same time leaves me vulnerable to stumbling blocks like misspelled words(where the sound is different) or - as with Shakespeare and similar - text blocks where sentence begin and end aren't properly indicated (i.e. upper letter at line start despite no sentence start).

Now I'm curious - those of you who can read Shakespeare - do you subvocalize when reading?

[Joykins]

I think it's hilarious that we have gotten to the point where the posts need footnotes. Next we will reproduce the Dunciad

Anyway, let's say there are 2 goals in teaching Shakespeare:

1) teaching children to appreciate Shakespeare as part of a shared culture

and

2) teaching children to analyze Shakespeare as literary text and/or performable play/script.

It seems to me that goal #1 precedes and may in fact be a prerequisite for goal #2, and that graphic novels, movies, and so forth would fall into appropriate activities in accomplishing goal #1, and which goal you're shooting for is going to depend on a number of factors-- you would, after all, approach a regular 9th grade English class with different goals than a 12th grade AP English class.

Ideally Shakespeare appreciation would start in the lower grades with things like those wonderful books for kids, festivals, and special programs that build their interest both in Shakespeare and drama--there are programs out there but they aren't available to every school or every student, more's the pity.