Switching Gears

In class there are several other students doing a study incorporating Shakespeare and Education. We discussed the general topic and directions we were taking. We are going to gear our individual projects to lead into a collaborative project later down the road.

My angle is turning out to be more of a "presenting the problem" and talking about different ways technology is incorporated into the learning experience. There are several limitations on public schools and situations are so diverse that we are thinking about leaning towards home-schoolers or unconventional independent learners can discover and learn about Shakespeare.

My previous thoughts were leaning towards how facebook, twitter, blogging, and sparknotes can play a role in this learning and the advantages or disadvantages of these tools.

How we learn is rapidly teaching. It is changing so drastically it concerns me that as I have received e-mails from high school teachers and professors that the teaching methods have not changed- they are commonly void of technology. Shakespeare has been transformed in adaptation movies (The Tempest and it's 2011 movie), plays (Shakespeare in the Park), movie spin-offs (Taming of the Shrew and 10 Things I Hate About You). It is also highly discussed in facebook and blogs.

Here is an example of a student using Openstudy.com to ask a question about Hamlet. Openstudy.com is a collaborative learning tool that people can use to ask and respond to questions. Essentially you can study and discuss material online without ever being IN a classroom.

As I continue to blog about my research and analysis I (hopefully) will be able to take a specific direction which is very clouded to me at present-day.

Progress Report: Phase 1

I'm required to document my research and writing process for the Shakespeare research paper I'm doing this month. According to the assignment instructions, here are the components I must include. I have written about how I have fulfilled these requirements and included links to previous blog posts. 

Exploration- I have been exploring the idea of teaching Shakespeare while students have access to Sparknotes. Many students, high school and college, struggle to read their assigned texts and will use ways around lack of time. I have been exploring how teachers insure that students read the original text and not only use sparknotes or other 'cheat' sties. In my blog post Exploring, I go into a more in-depth explanation.  

Social Proof (finding)- To begin I e-mailed high school teachers- mostly English and some Drama. I specifically looked for AP English teachers and the head of English departments. To get a collection of e-mails I looked to my old high schools in TX- Saginaw and Boswell High. I also looked in the school district of my first University (University of North Texas)- Denton High. I was also able to contact some teachers of my friends high schools- Hattiesburg High (MS) and Lakeside High (GA). In addition, I reached out to local high school teachers in Orem High and Lehi High. I have gotten a few e-mails back and blogged about it in Responses- Social Proof. 

These responses are not what I anticipated and several teachers ensure reading the original text by incorporating it into their classroom activities. Because my concern and topic is not too much of an issue for them, my next step will be to look into Professors of Shakespeare and English Literature. I feel like the problem will be more apparent as the responsibility is greater in college and students schedules become more demanding.  

Textual Analysis- I enjoy Shakespeare because of all his universal themes that are applicable throughout time. In his play Macbeth there are three weird sisters that predict his future. Macbeth believes they are a credible source because their predictions come true (somewhat through his own devices). So he goes to them a second time to learn the future. However, despite his efforts to avoid his impending doom, death and overthrow, they come to pass. You could say this teaches the audience that there are no shortcuts in life and although you may try to know the future you still have to live through it. This echos the idea that you cannot use Sparknotes as a useful cheat site, you need to go back to the original text. I explore this topic in my blog post Textual Analysis. 

At this point, I am eager to continue exploring my research topic and hopefully a good direction will appear as I continue to explore and work at it. 

Textual Analysis

Shakespeare has several themes, moral lessons, and situations that are applicable to our modern day. In my opinion, this is what makes his work classic-- the ability to permeate time and place, creating something everyone can relate to.

The broad nature of my topic may lend itself to support through one of Shakespeare's plays or several to reinforce the ideas. To give myself a starting place I am looking at the play Macbeth.


Macbeth is one of my favorite plays because of the deep psychological situations that are presented. To connect to this play to my topic I look at the influence of the 'three weird sisters' or witches.

They are depicted in various ways, but typically surrounded by darkness and crazy. These three sisters are the catalysts for Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in the play. He believes they are a credible source because they called him "Thane of Glamis," "Thane of Cowder," then told him he would be "King hereafter." (Macbeth, Act I, scene iii). He is currently Thane of Glamis, and shortly after the sisters leaves he gets endowed with the title Thane of Cowder.

Macbeth becomes greedy, driven by his wife to take his fate into his own hands. In Act III, scene iv, Macbeth commits to go back to the visit the weird sisters to discover his fate. He wants to 'cheat' and have the weird sisters tell him what will happen to him and his future reign.

Ultimately, the weird sisters prophecies come true because of Macbeth and his actions. Therefore, trying to take a shortcut and 'cheat' like Macbeth tried to cheat death and demise through the weird sisters' prophecies is as unsuccessful as students trying to get around original texts by using Sparknotes.

Responses- Social Proof

I sent out an e-mail asking questions regarding the methods of teaching Shakespeare to several high school teachers yesterday. I e-mailed several from my hometown area in TX, a few in MS, GA and some local ones here in Utah.

So far, I have received two responses from TX.

Here is a few samples of their answers:

Q: Do you encourage your students to use Sparknotes before/during their reading of Shakespeare? Why/ why not?

A: I do not encourage them to use any “cheat sites” like Sparknotes before they read because a) the real play is much better written, more moving, and more interesting than any summary, and b)  encouraging them to read the “cheat” sites would only undercut their confidence as readers and scholars.  If I gave them Sparknotes to read instead of the real play, then I might send the message that the students are not able to read the original text. 

A:  I do NOT encourage the use of Sparknotes because I don’t believe it gives them enough information (and most of my students no nothing about Sparknotes yet!) I want them to use the actual text and we discuss it a lot. I don’t even rely on the parallel versions with my pre-AP students. I DO use those with my on-level students, however, and Sparknotes has great parallel versions.  

Q: Do you think it is appropriate to teach Shakespeare to high school students? 

A: I do teach it, but yes, it’s appropriate. They need the exposure to Shakespeare to be able to understand allusions later in life, if not NOW.

Both teachers indicated that they utilize audio books and/or have their students read it aloud-- either way they are assured the students read the original text because they work it into their classrooms. 

I am thinking about asking Professors to get some varied responses. University students are more likely to know about and use Sparknotes with their demanding schedule and mostly assigned outside reading. 

What do you think? 

Exploring

Sparknotes-- a tool students of every kind use at one point or another, often to supplement actually reading an original text.
           Urban Dictionary (a dictionary for social definitions and common uses) defines it as: "mankind's greatest invention," "a lazy person's way to do a book report." Some of the context comments (censored) read: "I have a test on Macbeth tomorrow. Sparknotes to the rescue!" and "Give up [reading]?... No, I used Sparknotes."

So I have decided to look into a research paper about  Sparknotes and teaching.

I plan on gearing it towards a teacher audience concerning 'going beyond Sparknotes.'

I think it is important for teachers to realize that they are not going to get rid of Sparknotes, so they might as well use it as a launch-pad or create a teaching style that requires the student to go beyond what they can discover on this site.

Sparknotes is an aggregation of information including: general outlines and summaries of texts, symbolic meanings, character analysis, and more.

I plan on contacting a few high school teachers and see what their responses are to the influence of Sparknotes in their classroom and their methods of handling the reality that the majority of students use it. I will also focus them to the subject of Shakespeare because this is a paper for a Shakespeare class.

I hope to contact some English teachers--local and from my hometown. I also think that Drama teachers often encounter Shakespeare in their teaching, so I can reach out to a few of those. I think also contacting some professors who teach Shakespeare or general English classes would be interesting too.

Possiblities

I stumbled upon this guy named Bill who is traveling around reading Shakespeare plays aloud. 

He started in Stratford-upon-Avon and has read aloud in London, Paris, and Boston (to name a few). 

He calls is Shakespeare Aloud and has a Facebook, a Blog,  and you can follow him on Twitter. 

    Although I think the coolest thing is his YouTube Channel where you can watch some of his readings. 

There are also several different companies on Facebook. 

      One of my favorites is Shakespeare in the Park. I was introduced to them this past summer and it was a blast. They were concise and a blast to watch and interact with. 

During class yesterday I found a group called Hamlet Live through twitter. 

       They are streaming live performances from Toronto.  

Through all this connecting I still have yet to find a good research paper topic. 

I have been playing around with the idea of combining Macbeth and the study of psychology. 

      Although I am cautious in this endeavor because it can be so overdone. 

I found a blog called Literary Lew that talks about Macbeth and self-control. The author is a mental health counselor.  

     

I am not sure I will follow this direction... I am simply stumbling along in the dark until I find something that truly intrigues me. 

Audiobooks

Through this week, I am consuming Hamlet in several different ways. 

Last week I read The Merchant of Venice while listening to an audiobook (and found a surprising number of editing mistakes). This week I have been consuming an audiobook of Hamlet, but I have been just listening to it. I simply soak it in and fully envelope myself in the characters and voice inflections of the audiobook. 

I really enjoy listening to audiobooks because of the deep character development you can get through voice inflections and emotions. I can easily distinguish between the characters and even imagine what they look like based on their personality. Usually audiobooks also give you background noise and music to introduce every scene. Most of the time the music helps set up the tone and foreshadow what is going to happen in the scene. I really enjoy this aspect of audiobooks because it helps me remember the placement of the scene. Several times I skim over or forget which setting I am supposed to be picturing when I read a play: the audiobook really helps me counter this. 

There are some audiobooks that explore inserting commentary into the text. 

I feel like inserting commentary into Shakespeare takes away the nature of the story. There is an organic growth that develops throughout stories and plays as the plot builds and climaxes. When you interrupt that growth to talk about things that are happening in the story/play the listener no longer gets the development of the story/play like the author intended. Shakespeare has difficult language and it is often difficult to understand, but there is value to just letting the audience enjoy the general story without commentary. 

I think commentary is not too invasive if you include it in the beginning or the end of the audiobook. That way it is like an introduction to the story and then a further wrap up/ discussion afterward. 

It would be interesting to explore a commentary audiobook version in one of Shakespeare's historical plays (like Henry V) instead of a comedy or tragedy (like Hamlet). Historical plays tend to be choppy and often have a narrator to guide you in the beginning of new scenes; therefore, a little commentary or analysis at that moment would not seem so inappropriate.