DOCUMENT RESUME ED 345 285 CS 213 352 AUTHOR Rygiel, Mary Ann TITLE Shakespeare among Schoolchildren: Approaches for the Secondary Classroom. INSTITUTION National Council of Teachers of English, Urbana, REPORT NO ISBN-0-8141-4381-4 PUB DATE 92 NOTE 147p. AVAILABLE FROM National Council of Teachers of English, 1111 Kenyon Rd., Urbana, IL 61801 (Stock No. 43814-0015; $8.95 members, $11.95 nonmembers). PUB TYPE Guides - Classroom Use - Teaching Guides (For Teacher) (052) EDRE PRICE MF01/PC06 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Class Activities; Drama; *English Instruction; English Literature; High Schools; *Literature Appreciation; Renaissance Literature IDENTIFIERS Historical Background; Response to Literature; *Shakespeare (William) ABSTRACT Making connections for teachers between Shakespeare and his historical context on the one hand and secondary studentson the other, this book presents background information, commentary, resources, and classroom ideas to enliven students' encounters with Shakespeare. The book concentrates on "Romeo and Juliet," "Julius Caesar," "Macbeth," and "Hamlet." Each of the book's chapters includes classroom activities that focus students' attention on their own responses to Shakespeare. Following an introductory first chapter, the book presents an overview of ways in which literary scholars and critics have approached Shakespeare and th*.m looks at Ehakespeare's language and examines how to help novices understand why it is so different from modern speech. The boWc situates Shakespeare in his speech and writing community, discussing books and education in late medieval and Tudor times, and explores what is known and can be inferred about Shakespeare's life. The book then focuses on his plots, which can seem preposterous to modernstudents, and the dramatic conventions and historical realitson which they hinge. Finally, the book takes a close look at today's culturally diverse students, underscoring their easily oveo-lookedresources for understanding the plays, suggesting participatory activities for studying them, and advising teachers to become aware of today's youth culture and to work to connect students' lives lath the diverse and vivid life in the dramas. (SR) **************************************Mt***************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best thatcan be made from the original document. **********4******* ***** ************************************************ II PERMISSION TO REPRODUCETHIS U I DEPARTMENT OP EDUCATION TERI AL HAS BEENGRANTED BY Office al Eche...how saissearcr, endimptment EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES iNFORMAPON CENTER IERC1 ITA,SdocumenthaiOeen ...pled.ccl as recenved from miff person orcoogn,tal,ort offgrteshrtsi lumot changes hove ben" made trt onpf ore reOSOdidetOrt Quaid+, imolai TO THE E DUCAT IONALRESOURCES * ROgIts Ot revs or osyruorts Er ass rt 00C is INFORMATION Ci-NTER IERICI' MOM dO 01 4C0" TOOr4tS4mI ("MOW OERI prude" or Doc, .... ............_ BEST COPY AVAILABLE Shakespeareamong Schoolchildren 3 Shakespeareamong Schoolchildren Approaches for the Secondary Classroom Mary Ann Rygiel Auburn High School, Alabama National Council of Teachers of Cnglish 1111 Kenyon Road, Urbana, Illinois 61801 NCTE Editorial Board: Richard Abrahamson, Celia Genishi, Joyce Kinkead, Louise W. Phelps, Gladys V. Veidemanis, Charles Suhor, chair, ex officio, Michael Spooner, ex officio Manuscript Editor: Marya M. Ryan Interior and Cover Designs: Doug Burnett Cover Photo: James E. Corley NCTE Stock Number 43814-3050 1992 by the National Council of Teachersof English. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders and to obtain all permissions. In the case of those copyright holders who could not be located or those, if any, who did not respond, the publishers will bepieased to make the necessary arrangements upon receiving notice. It is the policy of NCTE in its journals and other publications to provide a forum for the open discussion of ideas concerning the content and the teaching of English and the language arts. Publicity accorded to any particular point of view does not imply endorsement by the Executive Committee, the Board of Directors, or the membership at large, except in announcements of policy, where such endorsement is dearly specified. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rygiel, Mary Ann. Shakespeare among schoolchildren : approaches for the secondary classroom / Mary Ann Rygiel. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ). ISBN 0-8141-4381-4 1. Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616Study and teaching (Secondary)United States.2. DramaStudy and teaching (Secondary)United States.3. Drama in educationUnited States. I. National Council of Teachers of English. II.Title.Ill.Title: Shakespeare among school children. PR2987.R91992 822.3`3---dc20 92-6100 CIP 5 I walk through the longschoolroom questioning; A kind old nun ina white hood replies; The children learn to cipherand to sing, To study reading-books andhistory. To cut and sew, beneat in everything In the best modern waythechildren's eyes In momentary wonderstare upon A sixty-yeer-old smiling publicman. W. B. Yeats "Among School Children" vii Contents Acknowledgments ix 1. Introduction 1 2. Literary Criticism, Shakespeare, and the Classroom 6 3. Elizabethan Speech and Shakespearean Language Use 30 4. Renaissance Books and Shakespeare's Use of Sources 58 5. Shakespeare, Biography, and Challenges to Authorship 73 6. Shakespearean Plotting:Dramatic Conventions and the Elizabethan Context 83 7. Shakespeare in the ContemporaryAmerican English Classroom 101 8. Conclusion 121 Works Cited 127 Author 135 ix Acknowledgments Special thanks are owed to the following: The National Endowment for theHumanities, for allowingme to do the research necessary to write this bookby awardingme the NEH/Reader's Digest Teacher-Scholaraward for Alabama for 1989- 1990, and to Professor JamesHammersmith, of Auburn University's English department, for beingmy mentor during that year. The staff of the Ralph Brown DraughonLibrary at Auburn University, especially Glenn Anderson,for cheerful, courteous, patient help, and the staff of the FolgerLibrary in Washington. D.C., for making my visit there a pleasure. My friend Martha Solomon, professorof Speech Communication at the University of Maryland, for offeringhome and hospitality tome during my visit to the Folger, forurging me to write this book, and for offering a critique of the manuscript. Family, includingmy husband Dennis and my sons Stephen and Robert, my brother ReverendPeter Heidenrich, 0.1'., andmy sister Rose Bosau; my deceased parents Marshalland Eleanor Heidenrich;my in- laws, Robert and Clara Reitz;friends; teaching colleagues; and students past and present at Auburn High Schoolare all owed debts which range from the intellectual to the motivationaland spiritual andare too numerous to specify. Finally, the fine staff at NCTE, especiallyRobert A. Heister, who oversaw editing and production, and Marya Ryan,the manuscript editor, who has been an advocate of clarity,consistency, logic, and readability and a vigilant eliminator oferror. As we came closer to finishing, I began to feel that Iwas trapped in Zeno's paradox, i.e., ableto cut distances in half butnever able to quite cross the finish line. Anyerrors which do remainare mutant, stubborn strains of myown cultivation. Two of my students who lovedDead Poets' Society and its referenceto Midsummer Night's Dream have remindedme of Puck's promise to amend. 1 1 Introduction One aim of English teaching is to make connections between writers in their milieu and students (as readers, writers, actors) in theirs. Historical information contributes toour understanding of Shakespeare and our pleasure in him. The aim of this book isto make some connections for teachers between Shakespeare and his historical context on the one hand and secondary studentson the other. Shakespeare is a writer whose work is the richer for being understood in context: he lived in a rhetorical age, before Puritan and scientific strictures on writing directed all writing toward the plain style. He faced the constraints other writers face from theirown education and inherited native language and native theatrical traditions,as well as the challenges of the nuts and bolts of writingrough drafts ("foul papers"),occasional stinging criticism from friends and consequent revision (see "Ben Jonson" in Campbell and Quinn, 1966), the need to skirtcensors, the pressure of deadlines and interruptions, the desire to pleasean audience, the judicious and most effective use of sources, and,on occasion, having work stolen or marred by others. The work directly on Shakespeareor in some way relevant to him could constitute a library, and in fact doesthe fine 280,000 volume Folger Library in Washington, D.C. However, relatively little workhas been done on Shakespeare the dramatist by secondary teachers foran audience of secondary teachers. We secondary teachers need historical materialsto help us place Shakespeare in his Renaissance context;we also need practical classroom follow-ups. Our student populationsare more heterogeneous and less advanced on Piaget's formal reasoning scale than the college and university populations taught by the usual writerson Shakespeare. Sometimes the information that a scholar relegates toa footnote might actually be more interesting to a young student of Shakespeare thana dry, abstract, more seemingly relevant concept.I am thinking, for example, of the information Roland