While some educators choose to abandon Shakespeare teaching, others modernize and enhance Shakespeare curricula.
Here’s a sentence you couldn’t write without William Shakespeare.
Ask Shakespeare if Shakespeare’s timeless works and syllabus fixtures should go up to embrace other writers. If so, you might get hostile or quarrelsome reactions.
Shakespeare was a genius wordsmith. He created engaging works that spoke to humanity’s psychology and identity. His creative use of words, masterful wordplay and clever puns as well as his innovative characters and plots has delighted generations of readers. He also made an impact on English literature and the English language. The English syllabus for high school English includes Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets as well as his poems written during his lifetime (1564-1616). Should all this guarantee him a spot on the curriculum for life?
Ben Jonson, Shakespeare’s contemporary. Shakespeare’s works include many outdated, misogyny and racist ideas. That raises the question: Does Shakespeare have more value or relevance than many other authors who have written beautifully about human suffering, love, history, comedy, tragedy, and humanity over the past 400+ years?
Education professionals are increasingly asking questions about Shakespeare. But the fundamental questions go deeper than “to teach” and “not to teach.” It is important for educators to question who stories are valuable, and what voices are suppressed. What does a syllabus tell us about our students and their place in the world. These questions can be addressed by educators through teaching, critiquing Shakespeare’s work and questioning it.
The revival of old plays
Brittany Greene, a ninth-grade teacher at Nazareth’s Area High school (PA), teaches Romeo and Juliet. Recently, her approach towards this play changed. “After reading about Laura Bates a woman who taught Shakespeare prison inmates, it inspired me to put more emphasis on the violence within Romeo or Juliet,” she says. Greene has her students create connections between the main characters of both the play and Jason Reynolds’s Long Way Down. This is about a teenage boy who weighs revenge after his brother gets shot and killed. She says students are asked to “analyze how Romeo and Will [from Long Way Down] are affected and then discuss what the results of those factors have on the characters’ behavior.”
Sarah Mulhern Gross teaches ninth and twelfth Grade English at High Technology High School Lincroft in NJ.
Adriana Adamse teaches at a charter college in Texas that focuses primarily on college readiness. She says that all our students have higher ACE scores. That is taken into consideration when deciding how and what she teaches. Hamlet’s focus is on the trauma, as well as grief coping methods. Adame invites specialists to talk about “what do you do with grief?” and how to stop it spiraling when confronted with stressful situations.
Elizabeth Neilson, High School English teacher at Twin Cities Academy is using Coriolanus to teach Marxist Theory. Neilson states that “when they read a book written centuries ago [that] discusses events and people of even longer ago, then it is easier for the students to dissociate their analysis from their biases.
For Shakespeare Workshops for primary head on over to Sky Blue Theatre.
Another approach to Shakespeare involves combining the source material in a retelling that offers creative, modern, inclusive takes on the plays. Dahlia Addler, editor of That Way Madness, Fifteen of Shakespeare’s Most Important Works Reimagined. Flatiron, March 20, 2021. Dahlia believes these new take on classic stories is “more accessible for a much larger range of readers than those who don’t often get the chance to see themselves in books they read for school.”
Author Lily Anderson’s retelling in As You Like It by Lily Anderson is included in this anthology. It has a plot involving a camp in the woods that caters to adults and a story line that revolves around the summer camp. Anderson likes Shakespeare’s works for their high level of reference. Anderson says that each play is a secret reading of stories, myths, parables, or other plays. Shakespeare and other works can be kept relevant by “keeping alive a connection back to antiquity. A chain of popular culture spanning the past to present.”
Shakespeare’s legacy is being taught all over the world. Part of reexamining the canon must be considered how he came about. Shakespeare can be included in a syllabus for years because teachers have limited autonomy and use texts that they own. They also may not have the budget to update them.
Ayanna, who is director of the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies and an English professor at Arizona State University. A Shakespeare scholar, Thompson has deep roots both in African American and postcolonial literature. Thompson comments on why Shakespeare’s works are such a prominent part of education: “Shakespeare is a tool used in England to ‘civilize,’ Black and brown citizens.” British colonizers in India created the first English literature curricula. Shakespeare was a major part of that new curricula.
The meaning “universal”
It is possible that the Bard became a fixture due to colonialism. However, it is worth considering what it means to say his works (or any of them) are universal.
Jeffrey Austin is the ELA department chair at Skyline High School. He says that we need to question the “whiteness” of the statement. Teachers looking for ways to teach themes that are not covered in canonical works may be able to turn to modern voices. These voices can speak to the same themes from many perspectives, beyond those of dominant identities or values.
Another concern is that students may not study Shakespeare. Thompson questions the validity of this statement. “At which disadvantage? This question seems to be grounded on an older colonial/imperial model. She states that the true disadvantage of not being able understand, analyse, and deal with the political and cultural contexts of any piece isn’t knowing how to do so.
Claire Bruncke taught language arts classes at a small school in Washington State. Claire has since dropped Shakespeare. “I inquired to my principal if there were any requirements regarding how much Shakespeare I should cover.” she said. She was assured that it didn’t make a difference as long as she was still teaching the standards. She used the time they would otherwise have spent on Shakespeare to create writing labs and read anthologies of novels and novel not found in the Canon. Bruncke says, “My students’ [positive] responses to this piece solidified my decision.”
Cameron Campos is an English teacher from Foothills Composite High School in Alberta. Canada. She has generally moved away a teaching style that’s considered traditional. Campos stated that “my grade 11/12 courses use almost all texts by Indigenous authors except for a few Canadian-inspired short stories.” Campos explained that Shakespeare is the author that the curriculum required us to teach. However this year’s provincial exam was expected to be cancelled or made non-binding, so Campos decided to skip Shakespeare and instead teach The Thanksgiving Play By Larissa FastHorse.
Liz Matthews (a ninth grade English teacher at Hartford Public High School, CT), a school which is 95 % Black and Latinx, also decided to pass on Shakespeare.
She says, “I replaced Romeo and Juliet in my life with The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros last summer and Long Way Down from Jason Reynolds this spring.” “Simply put, I feel that the authors and characters of the new[er] books are very similar to my students. They can make real connections. Representation matters.”
Defenders the Bard
An internet search reveals that many are upset by the possibility of Shakespeare being removed or replaced in schools. Proponents claim that curriculum revisions shouldn’t be controversial because education values innovation. Students can study any text, if that is what language arts classes are about: To explore literature through critical analysis; to grow writers; to increase literacy skills and meaningful engagement; and to create lifelong readers.
Thompson says, “All pedagogy requires to evolve in order to reflect different modes learning.” Thompson does not believe that a syllabus has to be changed in binary by replacing Shakespeare with other authors. Thompson suggests some authors Thompson might recommend for enriching Shakespeare’s studies. Toni Morrison, August Wilson, Djanet Seers, Gayl J., W.E.B. Thompson says James Baldwin and Du Bois are just a few of the many contemporary artists who have responded to Shakespeare. Shakespeare can be approached and taught from many perspectives around the world, which can then be analyzed.
Lorena, an Austin, TX teacher and cofounder Of DisruptTexts, suggested alternative solutions in a #DisruptTexts Tweet chat. German wrote, “Trust my, your kids will do fine if you don’t teach them Shakespeare.” Dutchman, Color Struck by Zora Neale Hurston, For Colored Girl Who Has Considered Suicide/When The Rainbow Is Enuf and Athol Fugard’s “Master Harold “… And the Boys” were all suggested by her. “All these are plays and have so many to break down. They are deep, powerful.
Austin asserts that there is nothing to be learned from Shakespeare that can’t have been gleaned from reading the works other authors. “It’s wrong to think that Shakespeare is the only one who can be considered a genius. All cultures have transcendent writers that don’t make it into our curriculum or classroom libraries.
Campos agrees. Campos says that no author should be given a higher place in the curriculum. “More teachers should have a discussion about why we are privileging certain texts and authors.”
Let the Past be Prologue
Bruncke, who places emphasis on student choice in her teaching, has never been asked why she stopped educating Shakespeare. “I am certain that the ELA classroom must not be centered on the narratives white, cisgender, heterosexual males. Eliminating Shakespeare was a step I could easily undertake to achieve this goal. It paid off for me and my students.”
It doesn’t matter if it was intentional, students are sent the message that modern literature does not merit as much reliance. Are we making it possible for the canon’s evolution and changing to accommodate current and future classics and other works?
Austin says, “I see teachers singing the praises about Dear Martin, Nic Stone, and in the same breath telling students to take their time reading it, as if it didn’t deserve class space.” “In my conferences I’ve had with students across different districts, they all report the exact same frustrations. The books they love to read get pushed to the side, and the books that they don’t enjoy reading become the central focus of their learning.
Austin speaks about BIPOC teachers and scholars, who have long challenged the idea of a canon and advocated for more inclusive classrooms. “We’ve been provided with the strategies, frameworks and tools, but no one is able to give us the belief or commitment we need. He states that the responsibility lies with us. “It’s hard because we challenge deeply ingrained beliefs around who and what knowledge are essential. The constant effort required to make our spaces more identity-affirming as well equity-driven is a constant effort.
Rethinking the canon can help to prove that literature belongs for all. The possibility of richer conversations and deeper personal engagement may result from the additions. However, educators must confront their own nostalgic attachments to the well-known works and their beliefs. Embarking on the diversity of literature will empower students’ lives, voices, experience, and perspectives. A growing number education professionals are now saying, “Let what’s gone be prologue as you look ahead to the future in teaching literature.”
