lodge you in the field!

Elizabeth E Schuch 

I agree with everyone that

i am enjoying this play tremendously

i am so excited to go see it on the 24th!

which have you seen the pre production pictures?
and the video?

theres also a study guide

looks fabulous!

i found this article that discussed

the relationship between men and women

in the context of this play 

now that ive looked at this and found this

i would have loved to look into this

for a research project

its is intriguing!

i also found this activity 

that has students act out 

the "Winter's Song" poem from the play 

i love this activity because it focuses on 

what i have been looking into with my research

this idea that students should look 

more in detail at smaller chunks of the play

and this is exactly what it is doing

and it is a really hands on activity which is good too

annotated biblio

the only bad thing about going to the library as an english major is that instead of coming back with one book you come back with this:

The hard thing for me making an annotated bibliography is  that I still have so many sources that they need trimming a lot.
and then as i keep slowly getting emails back from people they keep leading me towards more sources
a while back i said i needed an outline and i think i still do hahah

Sources:

Grierson, Sirpa. Personal interview. 16 February 2012.

Dr. Grierson gave me some great suggestions. She stressed the importance of making Shakespeare real with the students and trying to bring to life how Shakespeare was in his time. She suggested the use of videos to show the Globe theater and set up the play to experience it in the three levels that were experienced by the different classes. That way you are making Shakespeare more relevant to the students. She also suggested to break the text up into "big chunk, little chunk" (breeze over a big chunk, focus in dept on a little chunk) as outlined by Kelly Gallagher so that students are not overwhelmed with the who text of the play. One thing that was interesting that she stated was that when she studied Shakespeare as a child in Canada she danced and sang and they worked completely hands on, so that was very important to her  in her suggestions to me. 

Salmone, Ronald E., and James E. Davis. Teaching Shakespeare into the Twenty-First Century. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1997. Print.

I found this book after searching in the library for "Shakespeare and teaching." I believe that the original book that had the call number for was not what I was looking for, but this was close by! Even though this book is a tad older (reminding me of this), it still has some great ideas and discusses the idea of bringing Shakespeare alive in the classroom to engage reluctant readers. The last section is more modern.

"Teachers Set Free: Folger Education and Other Revolutionary Approaches to Teaching Shakespeare ." English Journal 99.1 (2009): 13 February 2012. National Council of Teachers of English. Web.

I believe I ran across this after I one of the articles I had looked at before was taken off of the website I originally found it on. Now I know this is a whole journal, but it is a WHOLE journal just about teaching Shakespeare! So I am having a hard time narrowing it... By my final paper it will be narrowed. This issue is awesome because it talks all about the ways to teach Shakespeare right now. 

Goodwyn, Andrew. English in the Digital Age. New York, NY: Cassell, 2000. Print.

I found this when looking for "teaching 21 century" in the library. This search also generated the five extra books I brought home. The thing I found interesting about this book is that it specifically brings up the problem of teaching Shakespeare and other traditional materials in our "digital age." 

Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. New York, NY: Washington Square Press, 1992. Print.

This is my original text that I am using. I feel it is one of the most commonly taught plays in schools, and it is also one of my favorites. 

So like I said I also have 5 other books.  And then I got an old book of teaching activities specifically for Macbeth. The other 5 books I found when looking for teaching in the 21st century. I am not sure if I will use the other 5. Three of them are about teaching with ICT. One is about adolescent literacy and teaching reading, and the last one is about teaching today and advocating changes in the curriculum. The last one is probably most likely that I will use.

My working thesis right now is:

The teaching of Shakespeare in secondary schools needs to consist of scaffolding the learning, active learning strategies, and breaking up the text so that modern day learners may more readily access the traditional materials in a world of new age learning.

I know this will change, but thats my quick idea.
The hardest thing i need to address is that I had one of the people i emailed email back and suggest i was over generalizing so  I need to figure out how to state that. She said that she felt there wasnt a problem in teaching Shakespeare so that is something I more need to think about

but more on my emails back later.

Digital Media: Shakespeare in Bits

So I previously mentioned that I found Shakespeare in Bits

which is an awesome company that is making these interactive programs for Shakespeare!

It is funny because I had mentioned it in my last post and the creator commented on the post giving me his information to get a hold of him directly!

I went ahead and downloaded all of the trials.

and i love them! i think that is it such a cool thing for students to use!

you should really download it for yourself just to see how cool it is 

here are some screen shots of the Macbeth version

Each play has an animated clip and text to follow along with
the text in annotated with  important things students may need to know
it also has note on the acts and a synopsis

It also has an analysis section with all sorts of key important things for students to know

there is a "cast" section that goes through each character and gives you important details

this is also great for a play like Macbeth where everyone is name Mac-blahblahblah

with in the cast section there is also a character interaction section 

i absolutely love this creation.

in a future classroom where students will probably have Ipads or tables or computers

a teacher could use this to make the text interesting and approachable

and also be able to use all of the text rather than having to trim it!

I then think the teacher could supplement this with hand on activities. 

go download it now!! and tell all your friends :)

i emailed the creator and am anxiously awaiting a reply because this is so awesome!!
another one of those things that makes me want to go teach shakespeare right now.

contacting people.

So I have been working on contacting all of my people.
This is basically what I have been emailing them --of course updated to fit them:

"Hello,

I am a student studying to become an English teacher in Utah at Brigham Young University. Currently I am in a class studying Shakespeare. I am doing some research and looking into the methods that are used in teaching the bard. I am looking to and making an argument that Shakespeare teaching needs to be changed from the current and traditional way that is being used. I have read many of your articles from the Folger blog and have even discussed you on my class project blog (pinatara382.blogspot.com). I feel that you have some great insight into this topic and some very valid ideas and topics.

My thesis I am working towards is that the teaching of Shakespeare should be more of a spiral or scaffolding approach and needs to be much more hands on. I have heard this idea that when teaching a play a teacher should breeze over a big chunk and then focus in on a little important chunk. I also think that teaching Shakespeare needs to be updated with working in the 21st technology we have. I think that teachers could almost teach everything with in the curriculum by simply deeply exploring a play so that students are very comfortable with it. Right now I feel that teacher just breeze over a play to say they read it with out working with students to really get into it to an extent. Otherwise, if teachers do not implement these ideas, I feel that Shakespeare study in schools may completely fade out because our new age brains can't seem to handle the current methods of just simply reading it.

Would you be will to share some insights towards my working thesis and ideas if you have a moment to spare? Or even if you have some good sources that I may be interested in I would gladly welcome that as well. I also encourage you to take a look at my blog as well if you have time and feel free to comment there if anything jumps out at you.

Thank you so much for your time and effort. I look forward to hearing back from you!"

So far I have met with Dr. Sirpa Grierson in our BYU English teaching department.

I have emailed:

Mike Lo Monico who writes on the Folger Shakespeare Education blog and has mention many things concerning the change of teaching Shakespeare

Christy Desmet who is a professor of Shakespeare for over 25 years AND!!! she teaches a class at her university specifically for educators called "Shakespeare in the Classroom"!!!!!!!!!!!! I was so excited when I realized this!

I also contacted many of the authors from the NCTE English Journal, Vol. 99, No. 1, September 2009

I have stumbled across Dana Huff's website many times and saw she had a page all about Shakespeare so I emailed her

I found this really cool Shakespeare in Bits program that is an interactive program that students and teachers can use to read Shakespeare. I tried emailing them, but I dont know if I will get through to the creators.

I am excited to hear back! It is really nerve racking though!

love and luck.

I love when you accidentally stumble upon a wealth of awesome things that are exactly what you need.

case in point

English Journal, Vol. 99, No. 1, September 2009
a whole issue all about teaching Shakespeare

i now am working through contacting like 20 people instead of the few i had

Also when I met with Dr Grierson she gave me some great ideas and pointed me in a few directions and also gave me the link to her own personal wiki with Shakespeare teaching articles!

Great digital media sources!

research paper woes.

I keep going back and forth on what I want to look into
i think a lot of it has to do with seeing what everyone else is doing
and i must still not quite fully understanding the details of the assignment yet

What i have come down to is looking into
the importance of Shakespeare being taught correctly through scaffolding
for students to leave with valuable things all in one unit

i have the idea of looking at how Shakespeare
being taught in schools by scaffolding the material
has greater benefits for students in many ways like:
reading comprehension
learning history, folklore
seeing Shakespeare's influence in our world

and i want to use Macbeth as my play

I feel like there are a lot of people I could talk to about this

My list I have thought of so far:
teacher of teachers
-Prof Wing -teaches introductory teaching classes
-Dr Grierson -teaches reading comprehension
department chair in a high school
-Tara Henderson
Shakespeare enthusiast?
Folger Shakespeare blog writers
-there have specifically been bloggers that talk about scaffolding
Students in high school

Shakespeare's Hamlet as a Diagram

I am so excited!
I heard back from the graphic design artist on etsy that I talked about in this post
and I got a response back from her!

As she described herself on her Etsy description

"I’m a graphic designer and photographer living in Stockholm, Sweden. After a little more than a decade focusing on commercial work, I have opened my mind again towards the artistic side of myself. I’m educated at Forsbergs School of Design in Stockholm, Sweden, and I also hold an MA with Distinction from Central Saint Martins, London, UK."

So I have been interested in adaptations
and have considered this for my research paper somehow
but when I found this piece I was interested in her work with the play
and how she made it
and her take on it

My original letter was:

"Hello,
I am studying English at Brigham Young University in Utah. Currently I am taking a class about Shakespeare. We are studying Hamlet specifically right now. As I was doing some research about the play, I ran across your diagram and was interested in it. For my class, we have been looking into unique adaptations and modern usages of Shakespeare. If you have time, I was hoping that you could answer some question to help further my research for my class. How did you go about creating this diagram? Are you a big fan of Hamlet or what drew you to using this play in particular for your creation? How is the diagram organized? (it is hard to see what exactly it all is in the pictures) How did you decide what to include?
Thank you so much for your time! I look forward to hearing from you!
-Tara"

She very promptly replied:

"Hello Tara,

I did it over ten years ago as a school project. Then I had it in the drawer for several years before I thouht it was too good to stay there. I’m not sure I remember all thaughts I had when I created it, but I borrowed the play from the library, read it, and made my interpretation of it into the diagram format. I’m not specifically any Shakespeare fan, it was more that I wanted to find a story that a lot of people are familiar with. At the moment I work on a new piece, just made a first draught to turn Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita into a diagram, at the same time my contribution to ”The Sketchbook Project”:www.arthousecoop.com/users/wah/artwork
Hope this anwered your questions… Good luck with your Shakespeare studies!

Helena"

I think her response shows how much Hamlet transcends and how important Shakespeare is in literature.
I think it is very cool that
she specifically chose it because wanted something popular that people would know
so that goes back to showing how import and transcending Hamlet is

and if you want to take it another level how important and transcending the stories
from the "Saxo Grammaticus’ History of Denmark or as it is properly called Gesta Danorum"

So this is what I am think about working into my paper somehow
I am struggling to figure out how though
and what
and how
haha

i obviously just struggle some times


but with all of that i thought that her adaption was cool
and even taking it back to teaching as always....
if students were looking at the diagram or even creating one for themselves,
this type of visual could be so helpful for students in grasping plot line!


I also would have posted this all sooner
but, i was in Moab for the weekend.

However, i found something really cool
and I wish I could have looked at it more
but check out these beauties:

(if you click on the picture, it makes them larger!)

while i wish i could remember the dates on them
they were old book in a rare book store
that had been bound hundreds of years ago
with print of the folios in them

they were so cool!

if i only had the money to buy them.

that just add to the many thing i wish i had the money to buy

but if you are ever passing through moab
you should stop in and see them
whether they are anything special or not
they were cool!

and on a super side side note just for your interest
they have a replica first edition book of mormon
that was made to look exactly like a real one
and some guy brought it in a tried to sell it off as an original one
so that was also cool to look at.
$500 to own but cool.

The Merchant of Venice: Back to High School Edition

So I had the intention that I was going to experience The Merchant of Venice as a high school student
I am not sure how I was going to do this or what I was thinking when I originally thought of it, but I got completely distracted.

I did find some great resources for teachers!

Judith Elstein created a complete unit for the Merchant of Venice
I like how much she scaffolds the lessons
The students rework the play several different ways
and also in very hand on ways
It was interesting that for one of the activities
she had students cut apart a book of the play
and then paste the pages to wall
and high light things through the entire play
i think this is really interesting
and would work very well for visualizing everything
but i think it would be over whelming using the entire text
it would however make students very comfortable with the actual lines

Folger Shakespeare Library has a huge
database of resources for teachers
they have all sorts of activities and resources
it looks like a great site for teachers
and they also have a Folger Shakespeare Education Blog

I have been watching for something good to chime in on
so hopefully I will be able to make some good conversation
in the bear future to report back on

Anyways! these look like great resources that
I will have to remember when I have my own classroom!

in response to kaleigh

while searching youtube for interesting things about shakespeare
i found this video:

it reminded me of Kaleigh Jean Spooner's "'Words, words, mere words...'-Grammar and Shakespeare".
now i know it isnt the corpus... but they are scuffing on the idea :)

in which tara takes on her mind.

I always seem to struggle with hearing other people's ideas about their research
and then i get more excited about what they are doing than my own idea.

For my research paper, I really love Macbeth.
It is just a strange passion of mine.
and that should be obvious from my blog title and stuff
so i have thought about focusing specifically on this play
--i dont know how though

but i have done a little bit of research with the last few plays about
the play sources and where Shakespeare seems to be getting his ideas and plot lines

I like this idea for a research paper
but i am struggling narrowing it down and making it work
(of course that is hard when i dont know the specifics even of the paper yet haha)

i also am kind of interested in the sexuality within the plays ---also very broad...yet very racy and interesting!
or adaptations... who doesnt love adaptations..
maybe shakespeare and teaching?

i am just really fighting my brain in a thumb war
of coming up with something really edgy and obscene
and something that interests me and seem as cool as everyone else's ideas

or maybe something with the modernization of shakespeare?
what if combined my ideas into one?

this may make something entirely all too huge
but maybe i could focus in more on one thing or one play
i have an idea of perhaps looking at how plays are modernized with:
-"translating" them into modern english ie No Fear
-changing the plot lines into modern stories with looking at movies like Scotland PA and Macbeth
-maybe working in Shakespeare's sources with how he rewrote known stories with plays to begin with

 this feels like an all too large and wild of an idea...

but, in continuance of this source research i have been doing

Shakespeare and the Gesta Romanorum

I thought that article I found for Henry V about the sources was very interesting, so I went back to Blogging Shakespeare and found the same lady's series for the sources of The Merchant of Venice.

In the series of Shakespeare's Sources by Liz Dollimore, she once again finds what Shakespeare is using for his source and idea. She specifically compares the 13th Century Gesta Romanorum (which was a Latin book of tales) in which there is a story that is almost the exact same plot line as the Merchant of Venice. She did also state that there are many more stories as well in history with the same plot line.

I thought this was very interesting because it is like Shakespeare took an age old fairy tale almost and created a new and dynamic play. He took the simplicity of the original story and added more characters to give the story more depth. This also allowed for his to create questions for the readers to ask them selves like if friendship or love is stronger and about Christianity and even now people draw Anti-Semitism form the play. It is also interesting that in the original story the princess saved her lover; but in The Merchant of Venice, Portia saves her lovers friend. So Shakespeare put all of these complex spins on the original tale to really create an interesting plot. 

This also shows how much literature is taking others ideas and creating them into new stories. Like what was done with the Lion King to Hamlet, Shakespeare did this with the story from the Gesta Romanorum to The Merchant of Venice.

The article was really interesting, so if this sparks your interest you should definitely read the original article or you can just take my word for it haha

word play and so many tennis balls

I talked earlier about all of the imagination and specifics worked into Henry V
I noticed that A LOT of people were posting about the pun of the "tennis balls"
so I decided that I needed to do some more research into it and look farther into it
I found this Folger Shakespeare Library webpage adapted from Mowat and Westine
that talks about all of the word play in Henry V

i find it so amazing how in depth and clever Shakespeare can be
I think the thing that makes his clever-ness so effective
is the multiple layers that it gives the speeches and writing
and it makes everything mean so much more.

that article was really interesting
there is also a few more articles on the left
that talk more about Shakespeare's writing in Henry V specifically

its all really fascinating and helps to show
how much more amazing and talented Shakespeare was

Complexity of Ariel

I chose to try and look a little deeper into The Tempest. I didnt really have a path that I knew I wanted to take, so I just searched randomly for articles. I came across an article by Katherine Steele Brokaw titled "Ariel's Liberty."


I found the article rather interesting of how it discusses the "preformed Ariel." It goes to describe the different portals and how the role really allows for each actor/actress to portray her completely different. It was also interesting to read that s/he is such a dynamic character that often directors will chose to cast several actors/actresses to preform Ariel so that they can full capture all of the aspects of her/him. 


The article then goes on to state how most of Shakespeare's characters are very specific on how to be played, yet Ariel has a million possibilities of how it could be pulled off. I find it interesting that Shakespeare chose to do this for Ariel and it seems to be because s/he is not "real." He seems to have wanted Ariel to be very ghost like and un real. The name Ariel may have been a play on "aerial" further emphasizing this idea of an unreal spirit. 


This article makes me want to watch a performance of the Tempest which I play to do this weekend. I will have to focus specifically on the portrayal of Ariel. It also makes me want to go back and pay more attention specifically just to Ariel and the vagueness and where there is the room for interpretation. I wish I had access to several adaptations so that I could compare them. Perhaps I will try to find some different You Tube clips.

This was pretty interesting and something I hadnt thought about.


Brokaw, Katherine Steele. "Ariel's Liberty." Shakespeare Bulletin 26.1 (2008): 23-42. International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance with Full Text. Web. 13 Jan. 2012. <https://www.lib.byu.edu/cgi-bin/remoteauth.pl?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ibh&AN=31603658&site=ehost-live&scope=site>.

Shakespeare and Prospero

This may be a completely off interpretation, but I was thinking about Prospero being a representation of himself. That made me wonder if the other characters are representative of people in his life as well. So are Caliban and Ariel his...lovers? Ariel could be Anne and Caliban could be the dark lady? This might be completely a completely arbitrary interpretation, but it got me thinking.

UPDATE: Read my comment below.

Pops, if you caused this storm with your mad skills, knock it off!

I would like to thank the "Book Phantom" for the modern Miranda quote  that I used for my title from the line " If by your art, dearest Father, you have Put the waters in this roar, allay them." While doing some brief looking into quotes originating from Shakespeare, I ran into that site. Let me just say I laughed for some time. Husband didn't think it was near as funny as I did.


I started reading The Tempest today. During church. I will admit. I have only read the first act thus far... and need to read more... but I am enjoying it thus far. It is a little romantic-y, but that would make sense since we are reading this for our romantic breadth.


While trying to do my homework during church, I was searching for an e-reader for my phone. I wasnt having the greatest of luck, but some how i ran across this interesting app that had all of  these illustrations that you cans set as your background--i dont quite understand "background" apps but i suppose its convenience. But the illistrations are by Edmund Dulac from around 1908. I thought the pictures were pretty, so when i turn on my phone I first have the awesome reminder of my VIP experience and Chino on my lock screen and then the ever impending doom of reading The Tempest  and Miranda as my background. At least the doom is pretty right?

Blogger confession #1: Does anyone else feel weird randomly posting on all of these blogs of people we dont really know yet? I mean I know we have had 2 class periods together, but i go to blogs and look at the "author" and think 'are they really in my class... I dont even recognize them." So mainly I just feel like a weird stalker creeping on your blogs and like i am leaving creepy unwanted comments haha

Blogger confession #2: while creepily commenting.... I hate your captcha forms.  like really. it would make my life 100% easier if i could just click "comment" with out having to verify an ink smudge of a word.

/rant.

Thou Sonnets Art Boring.

When choosing my sonnets to read, I specifically focused on trying to pick the most popular ones. I did this for the purpose that as a future English teacher those are the sonnets most commonly taught in a classroom setting. Thus, I chose and read: 1, 18, 29, 60, 64, 73, 94, 97, 116, 126, 129, 130, 138, and 146.

I suppose I read 130 and 138 in more depth per se because I found those two out of the twelve most interesting, and I specifically chose 130 because I had a funny experience with it in middle school and a classmate wanting a copy of it to give to his girlfriend and the teacher embarrassing him with the fact he misunderstood and that there are much more flattering love poems. However, I think I read all of the sonnets in some depth because I read for understanding rather than just reading it. I used this website to read the sonnets which I found very useful because rather than giving a straight analysis it gave more of just a clarification for things that I may had not understood.

With my title I am not necessarily saying that I think the sonnets are boring because I in fact find many very beautiful and others very interesting (like 151: what is that), but I am more saying that from a view point of any one who didn't have a strange love for all things literature like say a high school boy in his English class, I think that he or she would find the sonnets very boring.