Who hasn't read Romeo and Juliet at this point in our lives? It's the standard assigned Shakespeare in ninth grade English. I think it's a great play - overdone, a little trite at this point in my life - but done well, nonetheless. I think Shakespeare in general is an excellent addition to the classroom, regardless of age. I think R&J is a good first Shakespearian play: short, and sweet, it gets to the point pretty quickly about how wrapped up in each other these two kids are. It's great because Romeo and Juliet are roughly the same age as high schoolers, and students can easily put themselves in R&J's shoes, not that I highly recommend the students fully immersing themselves in R&J's lives...
The only reason I wouldn't teach R&J is that I do feel like it's drilled into students' heads over and over again. I understand CCSS demands that students have an understanding of literature from Shakespeare's time (specifically Shakespeare? I can't quite recall), but do we really have to do R&J every year? What about Macbeth? That has less romance and more violence, which is what all the kids want nowadays. Macbeth isn't too much harder on the reading scale than R&J, making it the perfect addition (or substitution) to R&J.
No Fear Shakespeare has become one of my favorite companies when it comes to Shakespeare. Yes, I feel it's still important for the students to understand and be able to read Shakespearian plays in the dialogue and meter in which they were intended to be read, but NFS really saved my butt in high school. I had no idea what was happening in some of the books we read until I had the translation to refer to. NFS has also started coming out with graphic novels, and if that doesn't peak students' interest in Shakespeare, I'm not sure what will.
No comments:
Post a Comment