Non-Traditional Methods in the Secondary Classroom: Mini-Paper

Well, as a few others have stated--this is the REALLY rough draft of my paper. Because I've received sooooo much feedback from people (that's not a complaint, it has been really amazing) I only really narrowed down my topic this afternoon, and I still have a massive amount of research that I'm wading through. That being said, I expect the final product to be a bit (okay, a lot) more focused than it currently is. You might also notice that I only have one solid body paragraph arguing specifically for my thesis (about graphic novels). That's because I haven't decided what other non-traditional genres and media I want to focus on... like I said, I've found a lot of information and I'm just working at wading through it all. If anyone has any suggestions/preferences for what non-traditional ideas I should incorporate, I'd be interested to hear your ideas. Cheers!

Janelle Frossard

Dr. Gideon Burton

English 382

5 November 2012

Embracing the Content and Language of Shakespeare:

An Exploration of Non-Traditional Methods in the Secondary Classroom

A recent conversation that I had with Dr. Crowe, professor of English at Brigham Young University, sparked a question that, I think, may be the question for all English Teaching majors: As a teacher, what do I want my students to gain from being in my classroom? While there are some people in the English world described by Dr. Crowe as “purists,” who fight to teach works such as Shakespeare’s with as little change to the original text as possible, I would argue that this fights against my purpose as an English teacher. I want students to leave my class having had a positive experience, and I want my students to become excited and interested in reading and writing—even if this excitement doesn’t manifest itself for years to come. What a shame it would be if a student decided, as a result of my class, that Shakespeare was just a boring guy who talked really funny a long time ago and for some reason a few people still care about him. While I admit that there is validity to the argument of teaching the real and pure language of Shakespeare—why should this teaching have to be exclusive? Isn’t there a way to teach the language of Shakespeare while also better molding the curriculum to fit the 21^st century student?

 In her paper titled, “Overcoming the Common Complaints of Teaching Shakespeare to Secondary Students through Alternative Teaching Practices,” Kasey Hammer claims that “the 7 major roadblocks of teaching Shakespeare to middle school, junior high, and high school students are: lack of relevance to the modern students, language comprehension, time constraints, lack of exposure to drama as a genre, lack of ability to understand mature content, teaching to learning disabled students, and concerns regarding audience” (?) In this paper, I will discuss only the first of these roadblocks—the lack of relevance that Shakespeare has to modern secondary students—while using Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream as a practical example. Through their use of non-traditional genres and media in the classroom, teachers can (using plays such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream) help students better enjoy and relate to Shakespeare, while also helping them gain an appreciation of Shakespeare’s content and language.

Teaching Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream through a graphic novel is one (perhaps less obvious) way to bridge the gap between the language of Shakespeare and the real life of a student. Gene Yang’s article “Graphic Novels in the Classroom” discusses some of the benefits to using graphic novels in the classroom: “First, graphic novels are visual, and our students love visual media. After all, they’re immersed in it. By combining image and text, graphic novels bridge the gap between media we watch and media we read. Image and text share narrative responsibility. Because of this, many teachers have found great success using graphic novels with ELL students and struggling readers” (187). When working to decode the language of Shakespeare, don’t we all feel like struggling readers? By using a graphic novel version of a Shakespeare play, such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream the Graphic Novel: Original Text adapted by John McDonald, students have all the benefits of visual images while still being immersed in the original Shakespeare text.

Yang goes on to assert that, “Graphic novels… have a “visual permanence” to them. Time progresses only as quickly as your eyes move across the page… The rate of information-transfer is firmly in your control” (188)! Suddenly students are gaining control over a text that, perhaps, once seemed so foreign and uninteresting to them. They have the ability to read the text and view images at a rate that is comfortable for them—another idea that fits in nicely with new media. Students are used to rapid-fire instruction and entertainment. By allowing students the opportunity to self-time their reading and comprehension, we are opening up new worlds for them when it comes to pursuing learning outside of the classroom, and hopefully for the rest of their lives.

Using movie adaptations of Shakespeare plays can be a powerful way to make the language of Shakespeare more accessible to secondary students in the 21^st century.

While using non-traditional genres and media clearly has benefits in the classroom, especially when dealing with a text, such as Shakespeare, that may be difficult for students to access, it is important to remember that non-traditional methods are not always preferred or most beneficial in teaching students. Technology for technology’s sake is never a good enough reason to use non-traditional methods as a teaching tool. Paul Baltes, a longtime teacher of English and Shakespeare, describes an experience of putting Smartboards in a variety of classrooms "I have installed Smartboards at 2 schools (Freedom Academy and Lincoln Academy) and at the Nevada Water Reclamation program at the Hoover Dam (a government facility). In each case, I asked the principals, the tech directors and some of the users what they were going to do with the boards. They all answered that they didn't know, but that these would improve learning. "How?" I asked. They had no answer[...] They were all convinced that somehow the technology itself would improve performance--just because they could show something on a screen, but none of them were equipped to know how" (?).

In her article titled “‘Signs of Life’ in the High School Classroom: Analyzing Popular Culture to Provide Student Choice in Analytical Writing,” Shannon Falkner struggles with a similar issue between balancing the teaching of traditional texts (and specifically with having students write about traditional texts) with teaching through non-traditional genres and media. Ultimately, Falkner surrenders to a less traditional way of teaching by fusing popular culture into her writing assignments, and she shares her reasoning by stating, “[…] at the end of my time with my students, what matters is that they have grown as thinkers and as writers. They can always go back and read Jane Eyre, but the chance to become a successful writer in my English class only lasts a year” (Falkner 49). I believe that this logic should be applied to the teaching of Shakespeare. When students leave my classroom, I would rather that they have had a positive experience—whether it was through the language, the content, or even through some other means—that will push them to pursue a career of lifelong learning—about Shakespeare, or something else entirely. My goal is to open up a world for my students that allows them to make choice about what they want to spend their time doing and investing in, and if I am able to sneak some great works of writing in there…then I’m convinced that I’m doing my job.