Being that we were assigned a topic to blog about, I think it would be appropriate to start this thing off, in a typical teenage/young adult way. By complaining, more so in particular about English 4223 also known as Shakespeare, I will be the first to admit I abhor that man, and his awkward and uncomfortable way of talking about "Love" without writing his characters in a way to where they seem like they have the slightest idea of what love is, I have no idea what they are saying and have had to breakdown and take a serious peak at "No Fear Shakespeare". And what's worse, I did NOT want to take this class. I feel like "Shakespeare" should be an elective course. If we are going to dedicate an entire semester of studying someones writings, can't we do it on someone who the majority of the student body would find relevant or better yet PREVALENT? Why can't we have an English class dedicated to Maya Angelou? Why can't we sit a debate about symbolism in poems written by Langston Hughes? Not to stereotype my student body but the likeliness of you finding a "Thespian" is pretty slim to none. All I'm saying is, if you want more participating in these types of classes, know you audience. Then maybe, just maybe Mathison, you wouldn't wonder why you have no attendance on Fridays.
-Chelsea
for those education majors, entering into the rewarding occupation of teaching; here's an article to help you not fall into the trap of "teaching over your students heads"
http://teaching.berkeley.edu/ways-make-your-teaching-more-effective
It's kind of a given for an English major -- you'd have to take Shakespeare at Texas A&M, Texas Southern, UT-San Antonio, etc. Rice only lets English majors take ONE Shakespeare course (they offer several).
ReplyDeleteWith so many of our students planning to teach high school, where Shakespeare's plays remain a staple at almost every grade level (9th graders have read Romeo and Juliet forever, it seems), a course that tries to help you understand what's going on in King Lear (often taught in the 12th grade) is good...at least in theory.
Personally, I have no problem with students looking to plot summaries to figure out the action. I wrote and handed out scene-by-scene explanations of all the plays we studied when I taught Shakespeare waaaaay back in 2006. That way, I hoped, we could focus more on HOW things were said rather than WHAT. I don't know that it worked...