Shakespeare

While I do very much enjoy Shakespeare, I don't love Romeo and Juliet. In my experience as a student, it was only approached in a very dramatic, serious manner. If I am ever in the position of teaching this play, I will definitely use a more humorous approach, as a large majority of the plot is pretty ridiculous, especially to modern standards. The play I would most like to teach of Shakespeare's is The Taming of the Shrew. That play is funny, witty, and it makes a comment about the role women play in marriage, which is certainly not entirely irrelevant today (wait--what do you mean teenage suicide for love struck reasons isn't relevant?! Sorry Romeo). As a teacher, too, I've found the language to be quite daunting for lower level readers. In my experience with Macbeth, I had many students who wouldn't even look it because they were already convinced they couldn't understand it before we had even started reading. However, I had a lot of success when using the graphic novel version of the text along with the Shakespearean language, as the graphics seemed to give them the visual that they were unable to form in their mind. I also had the students try acting out the play as they read it to give it a visual, though the graphic novel was more successful. I do think that it is important that students read Shakespeare, of course. However, I just wish there was more flexibility with the texts that we could teach. Ideally, I'd like to focus more on his poetry and sonnets in 9th and 10th grade, and use 11th and 12th to tackle his most important plays, perhaps more than one each year. He works are very important, but I think they are better suited for a higher level audience.