I haven't been reading.
Isn't that most horrible thing ever?
There's some Shakespeare - more on that later.
Tis it.
Will change this.
Have a Michael Pollan book coming soon.

Bardic Reading

I love William Shakespeare. Have I said that here before? It sounds cliche, but I care not.
It began as a child. My mom would take me to plays, often performed at the local liberal arts college (with the great drama department). Then in the third grade I was in a production of Romeo and Juliet at school. The following year it was A Comedy of Errors. I fell in love with the poetry of his writing. Also, this is what induced the acting bug in me.
Over the years I have seen and read a number of the Bard's plays and sonnets, though admittedly not as many as I'd like. Unlike many of my classmates back in high school, I have never had trouble enjoying or understanding these plays. I think it is because my introduction was through watching performances, and performing it myself. In my household it was not treated as something high an mighty and beyond me. It was a part of life, and one that should be embraced.

In a college writing class, with a teacher I did NOT get on well with, I defended the Bard and teaching it in schools. My teacher felt that teaching Shakespeare in schools made kids hate writing, and therefore should not be done. I only, begrudgingly, agreed with him in part. I think the way in which Shakespeare is taught can turn kids off writing. Too often teachers put it forth in the most boring way imaginable. They make the students read it on their own and translate line by line. I recall having to do this and wanting to strangle my teachers. And this from someone who, at the age of 11, begged her parents for the complete works (I should note that, though impressive, a monstrous tome such as the Yale Shakespeare is not very conducive to actually reading the works, esp. if you are a small child). They get so wrapped up in comprehending the language that you never get to really reading a play until maybe senior year, if you're lucky. Perhaps there is just such a cultural complex surrounding him that makes people think it is complicated. I have had classes where the play was read out loud, which may work a little better, because it engages the students more. I've had to act out scenes. Then there were the ones that had the students read the play and watch clips from a popular Hollywood film. Not even one of those good BBC recordings, but Mel Gibson's Hamlet (which I guess is better than Ken Branagh's 4-hr epic, which I will get all the way through one day! I swear!).

People are often struck with a moment of stunned silence when I say that the Bard hooked me so young. Let me explain. Two teachers in my elementary school had 3rd and 4th grade mixed classes. They shared teaching - sometimes all the 3rd graders had lessons together, etc. These two teachers put on a Shakespearean play each year. When my older sister was in 4th grade it was Hamlet (incidentally, one of the girls who played Hamlet went on to become a v. successful actress). In addition to working on the play in the usual way - learning lines, blocking - we worked on understanding the action. There were no deep readings in to the psychology of Hamlet, but getting a knowledge of what the words that were saying meant. Being able to act them out made the language less of a barrier. We also went to see local productions of the play we were working on (often at the local college, which has a Shakespeare troupe). We could see the play as a whole, and then could have an idea at who our characters were supposed to be, and what happened. Along with this came learning stage fighting, and using the ubiquitous lists of Shakespearian insults in organized verbal duels. One year we even had a Renaissance fair after learning more about the time period. The process was a part of the school year, and it was FUN! We had so much fun working on it all, so that there was nothing daunting, scary, or lofty about Shakespeare's words and works.

I honestly don't have the answers to this issue, except to start the little ones on his work long before high school. Though I am highly against teaching edited versions in schools (I conveniently "lost" my textbook when we read Romeo and Juliet and Great Expectations from it freshman year) using a slightly reduced version for third graders seems fair. Our Romeo never made it up the balcony, and was happy with the kiss Juliet blew him from above. And I think that's ok for eight year olds. What's not okay is this ridiculous idea that the language has to be a barrier to the text and that Shakespeare is hard. His work is fun, and should be treated as such.