The World's A Stage
|
|
"What I Didst On My Summer Vacation."
That would be Nancy Christy's version of the familiar back-to-school essay, if she had to write one; as an eighth-grade English teacher, she's on the other side of the lectern, though. But if you asked her to speak or read a little Elizabethan English, she'd be happy to oblige.
The Carver Middle School instructor spent the month of July attending the Teaching Shakespeare 2002 institute in Washington, D.C, a four-week program funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
After an extensive application process, Christy and 25 other middle and high school teachers from around the country were selected out of 200 entrants. Christy was the only representative from Oklahoma. Christy and her fellow instructors -- who represented a variety of educational milieus from urban schools and parochial schools to even a deaf school -- spent the session listening to guest lecturers, researching and sharing ideas on better ways to teach kids Shakespeare.
One of the emphases was fostering a better appreciation for Elizabethan English and the way Shakespeare employed it in his plays -- and then helping children to better grasp and enjoy it.
Performing the play aloud is a far more effective way than just assigning students to read it, Christy said, adding that as part of the institute, a playwright and an actor demonstrated just how to do that effectively.
"Like one teacher said, 'we can put Shakespeare in their mouths;' that's the best way to do it. The worst thing you can do is just read it word by word, you'll kill it; you lose the poetry of the language that way," Christy said.
Christy has always emphasized that in her own classes. "I try to show my students that Shakespeare's English is not a dead language; by reciting and acting it aloud they get a feeling for its richness and vitality -- and then they can understand it better. It even strengthens their own language and communication skills," she said.
In this age of video games and shrinking attention spans, Christy knows her work is cut out for her in making Shakespeare seem pertinent to kids' lives.
"I try to get them to realize that Shakespeare's stories are universal with universal lessons," she said. "And he didn't write above everybody's head, he was writing for a popular audience. I always tell them his plays are kind of a cross between a soap opera and Jerry Springer. Anything you can see on TV today, Shakespeare wrote about 400 years ago."
In comparing Shakespeare to TV, Christy also wants her "little darlins'," as she affectionately refers to her students, to think about the other kinds of entertainment they're filling their heads with.
"I want them to be critical consumers, to take a critical look at the entertainment they're consuming. Will they be performing 'South Park' in the park years from now? I don't think so. But they're still doing Shakespeare in the park. Think about what you're watching and ask yourself if it's something that's really beneficial to you."
One of the highlights of the institute, Christy said, was having access to the Folger Shakespeare Library, one of the most extensive Shakespeare collections in the world.
She spent several hours in the library, researching a paper she would present to the group. Christy chose the subject of suicide since it occurs often in Shakespeare's plays. Her paper explored attitudes on the subject from Shakespeare's day, comparing them to present day.
"One thing my kids always ask is why does everybody kill themselves, like when one of the characters takes poison or falls on his sword," she said. "I explain to them it's just a device Shakespeare used and that it had great social and moral consequences in his culture as well."
So far kids have responded well to the plays Christy's taught. April is always Shakespeare month in Christy's class (the bard's birthday is April 23) and every year, the students perform "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in the classroom.
"They love it, it's so silly and goofy, they really get a kick out of acting it out," she said. "Julius Caesar" is another favorite. "They like the fact that Shakespeare was using real historical personalities and that they can turn around and look them up in the encyclopedia," Christy said.
Christy also found a play that's proven popular with her black students.
"About half my classes are African-American and they really respond to 'Othello;' they like the fact that Shakespeare used a very strong black lead role in the play and he was writing 400 years ago," she said.
Copyright © 2002, World Publishing Co. All rights reserved.