Shakespeare Modernized

This article will examine a fresh way of reading and understanding Shakespeare through, what is called, "parallel scenes."

Sometimes it's not enough for students to perform the scenes. What happens, you wonder, when students only skim the lines and read them monotonously? Isn't there a better way to have learners play the scenes?

The short answer is yes! But how do we accomplish this?

In his article, "Teaching Shakespeare through Parallel Scenes," Michael Flachmann explores the practice of "parallel scenes" and describes them as "one of the easiest and most effective devices for involving students in the action of a Shakespearean play."

Wow, where do we sign up?

There are myriad ways to practice parallel scenes. First of all, decide upon a scene within the play you are reading. As an example, we'll look at The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 2 in which Prospero is describing his history to his daughter Miranda, who falls asleep listening to his stories.

Flachmann says that first he asks his students to read the scene while deciding on a more contemporary setting. Prospero and Miranda are in a cave on an isolated island. Perhaps your learners could substitute that scene for a typical child's bedroom in a modern home. Assemble contemporary props for the scene and ask your students to "play" the scene without looking at the actual text. Allow your students to make up their own dialogue while sticking to the overall plot of the scene.

For example, "Prospero" could say to Miranda: "Your uncle is a terrible person! I was studying at night school, working on my Ph.D., and so I let your uncle run the family business for a while. You remember, I was at my desk typing out papers late in the night, highlighting books and articles and essays, and running off nothing but coffee. Are you even listening?"

To which "Miranda" could pretend she's falling asleep from boredom: "Yeah, I know, Dad."

"Prospero": "I know I started neglecting the store and my family, but it was for a good reason! I was only trying to be better educated, so I could get an even better job and take care of you. I thought your uncle knew that, so I trusted him. But all that time, he was plotting to take over the store, and he did! Are you listening?"

"Miranda": "Yeah, yeah. The neighbors can probably hear you."

"Prospero": "I got all wrapped up in my school work. It felt great to be a student again! And your uncle, never owning a thing in his life, started thinking that he could run the store. He updated the computer system and claims that 'I don't know what I'm doing anymore,' but he shut me out!"

"Miranda": "He shouldn't have done that!"

Notice that I do not sound a bit like Shakespeare, but rather I created a contemporary parallel to that scene. Doing so, Flachmann says, "helps students identify closely with the characters," as they become contemporaries of Shakespeare. Creating these contemporary parallel scenes allows learners to play with Shakespeare, to interpret the scenes first and the language second.

Ordinarily, lessons rely on left-brain approaches--reading, writing, logic, etc., but parallel scene creations "encourages right-brain conceptual involvement." These types of interpretations also work for those students who get tripped up on Shakespeare's language. It provides students with the free reign to creatively interpret a scene and make it their own.

The next time your family gets stuck on a scene, try creating contemporary parallel scenes!

Flachmann, Michael. "Teaching Shakespeare Through Parallel Scenes." Shakespeare Quarterly. 35: 5. Special Issue: Teaching Shakespeare. (1984). 644-646. JSTOR. Web.

Teaching Shakespeare: A Classroom Perspective, a Homeschool Solution

Most of us have high school memories of reading Shakespeare, whether they be engaging trysts with a reading of Romeo and Juliet or a forced digestion of Julius Caesar. We may have hated or loved the way our teachers taught Shakespeare, leaving a stain or a warm-hearted feeling for the works of the great bard. But, now that we have readied ourselves to teaching Shakespeare in a homeschool environment, we look back at our experiences being learners of Shakespeare. There is an undeniable pressure to becoming the "teacher" of Shakespeare's works, but, I wonder, is one ever only a "teacher" and nevermore the "student" of Shakespeare?

In his article, "Shakespeare Goes to High School: Some Current Practices in the American Classroom," Russ McDonald explores the experience of teaching Shakespeare in the classroom and had interviewed four remarkable teachers.

It should be mentioned that he didn't just pull these teachers out of a hat; these four teachers have practiced at the Teaching Shakespeare Institute which was sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities at the Folger Shakespeare Library.

For the homeschool teacher cracking open a Shakespeare play, peeking at the curricula and methodology of American classrooms does not hurt. Rather, we can learn from their strategies and accomodate them to benefit the homeschool environment.

The four teachers, Nancy Goodwin, Martha Christian, Paul Sullivan, and Sheri Maeda, unanimously agree that performance is where it's at! "The preferred method," says these Shakespearean scholars, "is the preparation of scenes by groups of student-performers" (145).

In an overcrowded classroom environment, performance is probably an activity that follows much ice-breaking and disintegration of students' affective filters. However, in the homeschool environment, unbridled performance is easier to achieve. Performing strips the labels of "student and teacher" and allows families to be performers, actors, and audience.

Of course, performing scenes is a huge time-consumer, especially in the public school environment. With some sadness, McDonald admits that "the emphasis on performance has led to the practice of teaching parts of plays" (145).

Luckily for the homeschool community, we have ample time to read, rehearse, and perform scenes. (Think you're wasting time "only" teaching Shakespeare? Read the article about creating Shakespearean unit studies!)

In addition, we can carefully and jointly choose which play to cover. But how do we choose?

Martha Christian would say that Othello is a hit because it "is a powerful catalyst for serious [...] discussion," while others would say that it depends on the students and the mood of the "class" (146).

Paul Sullivan suggests that "it's not the play that determines the success of failure but the teaching methodology." Sullivan stresses the need to become confident "putting the works in the hands of the students and guiding them towards sources or opportunities to interpret and to make meaning" out of the texts (147).

As homeschooling parents. most of us are quite comfortable putting work in the hands of children and seeing what they do with it. The reading of Shakespeare can be an experience where the family holds Shakespeare and guides each other to read it and perform it to the collective vision of the group. But, despite the intimate family connection to Shakespeare's plays, many parents still shudder at confronting the bard's elevated and often puzzling language.

What do I say when my child asks what 'salad days' are? How do I interpret that crazy word that is highly suspected of being a clever pun?

Nancy Goodwin shares the pain: "The biggest problem in teaching Shakespeare is the language barrier" (148). However, Sullivan would disagree: "The language is less of an obstacle in performance-based teaching because there is such a powerful incentive to produce clarity for an audience" (148).

In a homeschool environment, a comfortable performance-based reading environment would also draw out questions about word meaning and usage. Because we're graced with more time, we can double as word hunters and read through footnotes or the OED for reference. Stumbling across a difficult word is also a good opportunity to teach our children how to find the answers they need, whether through careful thinking, analysis, and/or referring to another text (dictionary, footnotes, OED) for assistance.

Russ McDonald also posed the question: To what do students respond when studying Shakespeare?

Martha Christian claims that "[i]ntroductory acting exercises with subtext, subsequent acting, video-scene assignments, and comparisons of scenes in professional videos to their own video scenes" were highlights of her course (148). In the same way, performing Shakespeare in a comfortable environment and creating characters and staging organically can brighten our homeschool experience with Shakespeare.

With all the vast opportunities and "bunny trails" that reading Shakespeare can inspire in homeschool families, it's no wonder that many families focus on one play a year, but thread it through all 12 months as a current outlet for learning. Because Shakespeare's works are so multi-faceted and layered, the possibilities for study are endless.

The bottom-line, unanimous feeling is that Shakespeare is best taught as a collective performance, and the homeschool environment is certainly conducive to that. Children who dream of directing can even manage the camera while budding artists can be set designers if the family is not entirely made up of full-time thespians at heart.

Works Cited

Allen, Genevieve. "Shakespeare Performance 2010 of A Midsummer Night's Dream." Homeschool Performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Forte Academy of Tacoma Piano Studio and Homeschool Classes 19 Nov 2011 http://www.teachergenne.com/index.html.

McDonald, Russ. "Shakespeare Goes to High School: Some Current Practices in the American Classroom." Shakespeare Quarterly. 46:2. (1995) 145-156. JTSOR.