Potential Research Topic: "To Be Or Not To Be"

As I mentioned previously on a couple posts in this blog, I helped to Kickstart a book called To Be Or Not To Be: That Is The Adventure by Ryan North. I've described it to most of my friends as a "Choose-Your-Own Hamlet"; it runs through the story of Hamlet from a couple different perspectives, written in an informal, modern tone, and littered with decision points (for example, Hamlet can choose to go and kill Claudius immediately after talking to Hamlet, Sr., instead of agonizing over the decision).

The book is really entertaining, but academically interesting for a number of reasons. Specifically, the book itself criticizes many of the "Canon" choices--when you (as Hamlet) choose to go into Ophelia's room with fouled stockings, etc., then persist in choosing to act crazy in front of her, the narrator actually forcibly takes the reins from you: "You know what? I think you've made enough choices for a while. Move over. I'm driving" (308). Also notable is the "lost" pirate fight scene, which goes on for at least a dozen pages, and is filled with enough bad puns to make even Shakespeare himself groan.

What could make for a really interesting semester project would be a review/survey of To Be Or Not To Be, talking about what changes were made and how that affects the narrative, possibly comparing and contrasting it to other modern "renditions" (Better Myth's "Hamlet is Very Bad At Revenge" comes to mind [language warning]). What could make it even more substantial is talking about why we feel the need to "modernize" the narrative, and, possibly, how books like To Be Or Not To Be could be used to help teach Shakespeare.

If you'd like to check the book out, it retails for about $28 on Amazon, and might be available at one of the local libraries. You're also more than welcome to borrow my copy, and you can also take a peek at the Kickstarter bonuses I got (which is how most of the first edition readers would experience it). Go ahead and email me if you're interested; commenting on this post might send me an alert still, but I'm not sure.

Good luck this semester!
David G.

David's Learning Outcomes

Long, boring wall of text after the jump.

The Story Of David's Paper

The idea for my paper began when I was reading through The Merchant of Venice for the first time. When I   came across Shylock's monologue in 3.1, I was floored. At this point, it's widely known that Antionio is going to default on his loan to Shylock, and Shylock is fiercely defending his right to a pound of Antiono's flesh--the agreed-upon penalty for defaulting. Someone asks Shylock why he wants the pound of flesh in the first place, and Shylock responds:

Mikaela Kemsley: "All in the Timing"

All in the Timing:
Shakespeare creates his own standard of time within The Winter's Tale through the sixteen year gap between the third and fourth acts and the inclusion of music. When one embraces this irregular portrayal of time it alters their way of thinking. This is beneficial in interpreting the play as a Romance and in engaging the play with creative productions. These new thought patterns can also fundamentally change the way one views their every-day reality. Most vitally, an altered thought pattern is essential for fully understanding the fantastical mysticism that characterizes the play.

The Learning Outcomes of Bailey Gleason

Literacy:
Unfortunately most of the in-depth analyzing of Shakespeare's plays that took place in class happened the weeks that I was very ill. I wasn't incredibly active in posting online or coming to class because I spent most of my time in bed trying to fight sickness. I felt gypped of the opportunity to really gain the literacy that I've seen y'all gain, and in part I believe that's why I ended up taking a pop culture route to my paper as opposed to an analysis heavy paper that was all about the text. I just felt I didn't gain the background to do that, but in the end it worked out for me. Something I am extremely grateful for was the opportunity to watch Shakespeare movies which I really haven't done in the past. I really enjoyed watching the plays come to life and I am much looking forward to watching numerous more in the future.

Watch out, world! Story of my paper

Okay, so it took forever for me to get my paper going.

     I came up with a couple different ideas for theses and got great feedback from all of you (thank you!) and from my facebookgroupies along with some really solid advice from Dr. Burton. I found all these possible sources, of which I only ended up using a couple, but that’s okay.

     Thanks to some more guidance from Dr. Burton right at the end I changed my whole approach, (from “comparing R&J to MND andproving that MND was better” to “since we have to teach Shakespeare in spite of these risks, we’d better do it right, so here is WHAT to teach and HOW to do it” which was frustrating, but guess what! It made my topic much more accessible.

     Of course I was procrastinating a lot and praying a lot, which is not advisable but worked out for me: the night I was supposed to be writing this paper but getting nowhere I finally gave up at like 12:00 am and decided to just read a couple of articles for my ENG 378 class and then go to bed. Well guess what, those articles were about Shakespeare! And the next day my ENG 378 teacher shared a Scholastic Scope kids lit magazine that had a MND script in it – I was so surprised and very grateful. Those articles and that magazine fit perfectly into my essay. I also had one good response from a question I posted to a teacher Google community that contributed to my thesis. Equipped with these great tools, I stayed up til 3:30 am and finished that dang paper in the nick of time! Now maybe it will be accepted to the venues I have submitted it to (the Rough Magic guys emailed me back and are looking over my full text!) and go on to change the world! 

THE END: The Story of My Paper

I started the research unit very enthusiastic about this digital/social approach to writing. I had heard reports from some students from last semester's class of their topics and research and was really excited to try my own. I already knew I wanted to do something with Shakespeare and games because I had been digging into the idea of games scholarship of any and all kinds the semester before. Games have always been a huge part of my life, even if I haven't always acknowledged it (no one you know owned a wider array of trading card games as I did--I promise), and I wanted all that time I spent playing games to amount to something interesting and intellectual. Ironically, however, I've played many, many more board and card games in my life than video games--my parents never allowed any video game console into my house until the winter I left for college, so the move to video games was a strange one for me. I figured, though, that in a way gave me an advantage because I could look at games more objectively and intellectually. I could more legitimately answer the question "Can video games be art?" because I hadn't already answered it for myself. I started looking around and found some interesting resources on Shakespeare possibly being a game designer were he alive today, and that helped narrow things down to just four possible paper topics.

The paper I ended up writing was, of course, really a mash-up of all four ideas. (Good thing I had ten pages.) I was pleasantly surprised to find out that other people were actually interested in this topic, and that there was plenty of material from Shakespeare's text itself to support such claims. As I kept looking, I found discussions actually happening about a topic I thought was extremely specific, which was very encouraging. The class really got involved in my paper, too, as I kept getting a lot of good responses on my posts, even when I was just musing. All of this really got me going, so by the time we had to do annotated bibliographies and find possible audiences, I already had tons of info--enough that I could easily pass some of it over to Britton in hopes that he could treat some stuff I didn't have time for but really interested me. By the time I did my first rough draft, my mind was racing all over the place because I had found so much information and so much interest.

That's when my paper took a difficult turn. I realized I was getting too much to say and too many angles on the topic that my paper just wouldn't be cohesive unless I cut. I went back to the primary text because I knew if I stuck close to The Tempest I could keep it tight. When I went back to do research again, I focused a lot more on specific arguments I had rather than general information on video games, art, and Shakespeare like I was doing before. The stuff I found in that round of research actually made up the bulk of my final paper because, thanks to the suggestions of others and some great feedback from author and game philosopher Chris Bateman (twice), I tightened up my paper significantly to be a discussion of the legitimacy of video games in our culture compared to the fight for legitimacy for English drama in Shakespeare's own day, which made for a good first full draft.

In discussions with Dr. Burton late in the game, I found out about the RMMLA conference and, luckily, they had a panel planned for this year's conference about games and new media that instantly became my number one choice for publishing. I got into contact with the panel chair and got enthusiastic responses from her because she was having a hard time getting the panel off the ground, so I was quickly accepted, though with the chance that I might not get to present because the panel might get canceled.

After getting accepted, though, I had to really make sure the paper turned out well, so after a final interview with Professor Burton I made some pretty big organizational changes and brought back a couple elements from my first draft and kicked out some from the full draft and finally submitted my finished paper. I'm still not sure what's going to happen, but I've been so inspired that I'm seriously considering starting a blog about the intersection of the humanities and video games, which I very well might do after this semester ends and I have some free time this summer. It's been a great ride--and it's not over yet.

Learning Outcomes

Gain Shakespeare Literacy:
This class has been great in advancing my knowledge of Shakespeare. I feel like we have experienced Shakespeare on so many different levels in this class be it theater, cinema, reading or even composing, these experiences, I feel, have really enhanced my understanding of not only the specific texts that we have studied but also my ability to recognize Shakespearean constructs. An example of this is Shakespeare's use of disguise as a way to add complexity to his plays. Before this class, when I'm not reading many Shakespeare plays consecutively the significance of disguise in his plays would slip through the cracks for me. For me specifically this class afforded a totally different view of Shakespeare's plays. I had taken a Shakespeare class earlier on in my collegiate endeavors and was given a pretty solid foundation in Shakespeare's works. That class had a greater focus on the life of Shakespeare as a man. This class, aside from focusing on completely different plays, showed me a view of Shakespeare that was not historically grounded and allowed me to learn and understand how to analyze and find relevant meaning for myself in today's world. Focusing on things like rhetoric and the significance of plot devices really opened up Shakespeare in a new way for me.
Analyzing Shakespeare Critically: 
The way this class was set up made it impossible not to approach Shakespeare without an analytical mind. I really enjoyed all the awesome conversations I was able to have with classmates. These conversations were really important to me because they, not only allowed me to hear other peoples view points, but also because they really let me talk and figure out my own confused ideas. Because we experienced Shakespeare in so many different mediums it was really easy to compare and contrast them. This natural analytical process was a lot of fun and made it easy to draw out the significance that Shakespeare's writing have in today's society. This was especially true when I began researching Coriolanus for my final paper. As I studied the text and watched the movie and read about different productions I was able to see how my ideas about nature vs. nurture and tragedy were really mattered and how Coriolanus is really a work a head of its time.
Engage Shakespeare Creatively:
Engaging Shakespeare creatively was not as high on the priority list as some of the other learning outcomes but I do feel that, given all the ground we covered this class did a good job and getting creative with Shakespeare.  Obviously this took place in the form of composing a Sonnet. For me, this was kinda difficult. I am by no means a poet and writing in  iambic pentameter for some reason was more difficult than I'd like to admit. However, I was happy with my final product and the experience of composing in iambic pentameter really gave me a better perspective on Shakespeare's genius.  I also think, to a certain degree, attending the children production of Henry V was a creative engagement of Shakespeare.  Being an audience member is an import part of theater and the way that production of Henry V was  the audience was very much involved in the overall artistic value of the play.
Share Shakespeare Meaningfully:
This class, more than any other, has forced me to break out of my shell.  I'm not naturally a social butterfly but with a little encouragement from Professor Burton I ended up having a few cool conversations with people I wouldn't have other wise spoke with about Shakespeare. As I a have already mentioned, the conversations in class and on learning suite were really important to me and I think they qualify this learning outcome as well. There was a great sense of community in this class and I think it was because we all were genuinely interested in what everyone else was researching because we knew that other students research would undoubtedly enhance our understanding and research.
Gain Digital Literacy:
Unfortunately I do not have a cool story about how the people I tracked down online responded to me in a positive way about my paper topic or thesis. The most I ever got was a "sounds cool" from some dude on a Good Reads Shakespeare forum. However, I don't think that is the important part about being digitally literate. The important thing is that I was attempting to cultivate research in a way that would give a whole new kind of legitimacy and depth to my paper. Many of the ways that Professor Burton showed us how to search for information and sources (twitter search, searching teacher syllabus') were a totally new to me. Though I did not have a ton of success through these avenues I feel there is a ton of value in knowing that these avenues exist and that they are legitimate.  There are tons of ways waste time using the internet this class showed me how to avoid that predicament and that there are a ton of cool people out there willing to contribute to my personal research. A big part of my digital literacy came from contributing to the class blog.  This was a completely new experience for me and I was definitely skeptical about having to do it. However now, as I type my final post, I can see that there is a lot of value in using the internet to validate your ideas. Even if it is a class blog that only a few people may ever see, putting something of the internet causes you to think a little harder about what your saying and thus forces you to understand a little better the things you are trying to talk about.

My Paper: A Story

Okay, I'll admit it. What first blossomed as an idea about love quickly became a means of justifying a guilty pleasure of mine: The Bachelor. I was stuck in what I wanted to write about, feeling that most ideas surrounding Shakespearian plays had already been discussed. I already had traditional papers to write for other classes and I really didn't want to spit out another paper that I wasn't connected to. Professor Burton kept urging us to do just that: find a subject that we're really interested in that can relate to Shakespeare because if we develop a passion for our topic, we're more likely to write a better paper. 

Learning: A Lifelong and Social Experience

Learning Outcomes

1. Gain Shakespeare Literacy

Over the course of this semester I have read and watched various Shakespeare plays and sonnets including: The Taming of the Shrew, The Winter’s Tale, Henry V, King Lear, and Love’s Labour’s Lost. I was introduced to more Shakespeare works than I had previously been exposed to. The breadth of my study included plays from the main Shakespearean genres: comedy, tragedy, history, and romance. I was able to gain a wider picture of Shakespeare’s works through the various genres. Henry V and my individually assigned play, Love’s Labour’s Lost were two plays that I studied more in depth. Through this process, I learned more about rhetoric and how powerful it can be. I also learned that pretty much EVERYONE has their own opinion about it. During this time, I was also able to watch various plays on film and stage. Some film/stage adaptations were certainly better than others. Certain artistic and theatrical features determined the quality of the performance. For example, the Henry V stage production chose not only to cast Henry as a female but also adapted much of the play for a children’s audience. This greatly changed the way Henry is viewed as a character. Sometimes these changes worked, and sometimes they didn’t. However, all the changes revealed something different about the play and emphasized its applicability to our day. In addition, over the course of the semester I have read countless sources about background information about Shakespeare, peer-reviewed articles, and found numerous blogs and modern-day adaptations of his plays.

Gather round, it's story time!

Well... I have somewhat of an obsession with time which anyone who is close to me can tell you. So, I wrote my midterm paper around that theme and Dr. Burton told me when he read it that he felt it needed to be more than just a four page paper. So, while my final product was nothing like my midterm paper, it was the starting point for my research paper about time.

Time, however, is quite a broad category. Everything relates to it on some level or other, and so I found that I had a relatively broad thesis that could incorporate many different topics. On a research level, I loved this. I got to explore time's affect on memory, the seasons, music, Shakespeare as a business man... really anything I found interesting was fair game.

In actually writing the paper, however, this proved detrimental. I made sure everything related back to my thesis of course, but my paper was still kind of all over the place. In the end I had to make a last minute change to my thesis (which meant making a ton of changes to my paper) to make it more cohesive. This paper is still in the works to a degree, I've finished it but I'm still waiting to hear back about feedback and I may or may not need to revise it a little more tomorrow...

What I'd change in the future: It's ok to do some initial preliminary research before configuring a thesis, but it would've been a lot less effort to conjure a narrow, specific thesis before I did so much research. By the end of everything I probably wrote enough to make at least 3 10 page research papers, most of which I'm not even using.

SUCCESS!!

I have successfully submitted my paper to the Scholar’s Archive at BYU. I am also planning on submitting my paper to Criterion. The requirements for submitting to Criterion are much the same as the actual paper requirements. Hopefully, they’ll accept me. :)

Learning Outcomes

So. The moment of truth where I figure out whether the effort and the stress was worth it:
1. Gain Shakespeare Literacy
Breadth: We read a few works together as a class which expanded by breadth of Shakespeare understanding, though I feel the majority of my breadth actually came from reading other people's blog posts and research papers. Actually, before reading a research paper on a play I hadn't read I usually looked up the sparknote or Wikipedia summary quickly beforehand, skimming through it so I wasn't going in totally blind. It didn't take a ton of effort, but I actually ended up learning a lot from it.

Depth: I definitely have a thorough knowledge of The Winter's Tale now after reading it, seeing a performance of it, and writing my research paper on it. I also feel that I have a thorough understanding of Henry V now. Part of that is the result of reading it for this class and watching the movie with my sister who has an obsession with Kenneth Branagh, but it also conveniently coincided with two of my theater classes. I had to see the BYU production of Henry V,read the script for it, and write two papers on it for the theater classes. Also, there were multiple people in the class that wrote in reference to that play and I watched and tried to help as their papers developed. Actually, I'll be honest and say I don't think I want to watch Henry V again for a very very long time...

Performance: I actually already had a fair amount of performance background in Shakespeare before coming to the class, having been in multiple productions as an actress. Going to see productions though, rather than being in them, definitely gave me a new perspective. Also, I had seen movie productions of Shakespeares before, but before this class I feel my brain was pretty occupied by just following the plot. Now that I'm more familiarized it wasn't as difficult to follow the plot which enabled me to really start analyzing the movies. Talking about the movies in class helped with that a lot - the other students would bring up all sorts of things that I hadn't noticed.

Legacy: It was definitely beneficial to take this class at the same time as my theater history class. I got to look at Shakespeare within the context of Elizabethan theater, the theater that predated it, and the theater that followed it. This class also had a heavy social basis - I discovered when talking with friends/peers about this class how prevalent Shakespeare is in pop culture. Even people who had never read or seen any of his works could spit out famous Shakespeare quotes.

Analyze Shakespeare Critically: I definitely got some experience analyzing Shakespeare on a textual level, we had some posts on that and I also tried to incorporate analyzing the primary text in my final paper. I got some contextual experience with Shakespeare as well - thanks to a large degree to Lizy's paper :) A new and huge facet to analyzing Shakespeare for this class was through digital means: digital dialog, blogs, goodreads and other online communities etc. That took some getting used to for me, and I'm sure I'm still not fully digitally literate but I'm a whole lot further than I was at the beginning of this class. I'm not exactly a computer person so this wasn't an entirely enjoyable aspect of the class for me, but I know it was a good thing and I'm slightly less afraid of the internet now... In terms of literary lenses, I definitely looked at his work through the lens of feminism, especially when we were reading The Taming of the Shrew.

Engage Shakespeare Creatively: So I'm going to be honest: I was sadly disappointed at the lack of creative opportunity in this class. I definitely got that through the sonnet and I loved that. That was probably my favorite part of the whole semester. I guess I was just hoping we would do more creative projects like that/group performances etc. Granted, this is coming from an actress...

Share Shakespeare Meaningfully: I'll hopefully be able to do this through my research paper - I ended up changing my thesis last minute so I'm a little behind and haven't submitted it to be published, but once the paper is fully finished I plan on doing that. I definitely got to share Shakespeare via this blog and digital dialog, and through other online communities I started looking at when I started my research paper. Most fun for me was sharing just through conversation. My sister is quite the reader so I think she was ecstatic to have someone to analyze Shakespeare with, my friends who were in Shakespeare productions with me in the past and were in the recent BYU productions were excited to talk with me, and my theater professors even talked to me about Shakespeare!

Gain Digital Literacy: So... I hate computers. I'm the type of person that still brings a pen and paper to all her classes. With that said, I wasn't a huge fan of the whole "digital literacy" thing, but it was definitely beneficial. A digital medium allowed me to be able to communicate with enthusiasts and experts who I wouldn't have been able to otherwise. I read a lot of my information for my research paper online, was able to post on blogs/forums, and e-mail others from online Shakespeare communities.

Learning Came-outs

1. Gain Shakespeare Literacy 

I definitely came out of this class with a greater knowledge of Shakespeare, especially in several different reincarnations of his texts. Perhaps most importantly, I read plays I had never read/heard/seen before--specifically The Winter's Tale and King Lear, expanding my Shakespeare vocabulary and working knowledge significantly. I also understood more deeply plays I had experienced before, especially Henry V. After reading and seeing Henry V in London last summer, I thought I had a good understanding of the play, but after watching Kenneth Branagh's version, seeing the Children's Theater adaptation, and writing on the play myself, I saw much further into the play, especially the role and power of rhetoric both within and outside the play, as the play itself is an interesting work of rhetoric. I realized in London that the best way to experience Shakespeare was in performance, and so I was grateful that we got to watch several live and filmed performances, as well as read about and listen to others (listening wasn't required, I know, but I took advantage of the opportunity to try out a couple audio versions of the plays).

Specifically for my research project, I learned about Shakespeare's legacy in video games and Shakespeare's legacy in the debate of what "art" is. It was especially interesting to learn how society's views of Shakespeare have changed so drastically over the years, and how that has changed both the levels and types of performances his plays have been given. Shakespeare's legacy is perhaps the greatest of any artist not just because his own work was of such high quality, but because he has been the springboard for the work of others' of all ranges thanks to the original quality of his own work. 

All of this information has been buried deeper into my memory than it otherwise would have because I experienced/gained it all with other people--whether it was my wife, classmates, or random internet personalities, I will remember what I learned about Shakespeare much longer than what I learned in other classes this semester because so much of the information has specific people attached to it.

2. Analyze Shakespeare Critically 

I really enjoyed the opportunity not only to discuss Shakespeare's work from the text in class, but also analyze how his work has been adapted to stage, screen, and otherwise (I don't know what medium Sleep No More is supposed to be). I think because we discuss movies so often in our culture anyway, we were a lot more prepared as a class to discuss film adaptations of Shakespeare together than just the text itself, so I feel I learned a lot more from the films not just because they offered their own interpretation, but because discussion of those films was so easy in class. Walking the shelves of the library was (sadly) a new way for me to understand the history of Shakespeare. Just seeing the progression of books and scholarship of Shakespeare and watching the trends of the older books to the newer books was itself a study in contextual analysis as I could see the physical books and journals and feel the influence of that time period of the piece itself. It helped me look at Shakespeare from a broad range of cultures all at once, which invited all kinds of different theories quite naturally into my analyses. I really appreciated Prof. Burton's emphasis on a broad range of sources and people to discuss Shakespeare with because it helped me break into so many different interpretations so quickly, which gave me a freedom to really interpret Shakespeare how I wanted and felt was most important based on what had already been said.

3. Engage Shakespeare Creatively 

While we didn't do much traditional creative work with Shakespeare, I personally feel like my final paper on Shakespeare and video games displays some of the most creative thought of my college career, as far as creative means novel, innovative, and valuable to others. Also, the original sonnet I wrote--and especially the video I made to go with it--was the most satisfying traditionally creative pursuit of my semester, so this class really helped me win on both fronts, even if creativity wasn't a main emphasis. I think the reason for this is because I told more people about my ideas and solicited more help with my work in this class than any other class or project I've ever worked on, and as I worked with others my projects just kept getting better. 

4. Share Shakespeare Meaningfully 

Similar to what I said about creativity above, I feel like my projects for this class have been some of the most meaningful of my college career, again thanks in large part to my increased sharing and invitation for input. Because I felt free to go out on such a limb with my paper (let's be honest, how many professors would have really supported a paper on Shakespeare and video games? Sure, many might have said it was a good idea, but I don't think too many would have actually considered it appropriate, especially for an undergrad), I was naturally forced to dig more meaningfully into Shakespeare's work because the meaning was no longer obvious. The meaning of Shakespeare has already been so well mapped out again and again in the past in relation to so many subjects that I feel most students can just kind of skirt their way around the real meat of Shakespeare and what he means to our culture. By tackling a relatively original connection to Shakespeare, I had to ask a lot of old questions in new ways and really try and pull out my own answers--questions like "What is art?" and "What constitutes a profound experience?" So many people agree that Shakespeare already answered these questions that we almost forget to think about the questions and just gloss over them as old news. Taking Shakespeare into new realms allows us to re-ask those questions with a whole new vigor, and allowed me to rediscover much of the great meaning of Shakespeare for myself.

Additionally, not only did this happen once or twice as I worked on two formal projects, but kept happening as I kept having to write more and more and search for more new people to share my ideas with. I literally searched the whole spectrum of human intelligence to find answers to my questions--everything from the great Bard's words and highly-respected, peer-reviewed academic articles all the way down to the lowest comments on the dumbest blogs of the video game industry. Studying Shakespeare in class and online simultaneously felt something like it must have felt to see Shakespeare in the original Globe--with groundlings and royalty alike watching on in awe at one man's words.

5. Gain Digital Literacy 

I can quite honestly say my online world has shifted thanks to this class. Because the internet was validated for me as a source of legitimate information (as long as its wielded correctly), I dug deeper into the internet for answers to intellectual questions than ever before. I joined at least two new social networks for this class (Disqus and Reddit) and found several, several others to read and respond to regularly. I also actually started using my Twitter account, which I had only sort of used before for my job. Rather than see the internet as a place to escape life or wander around, the internet to me now is a place to really connect with real, good, intelligent people in ways that would never be possible before. I know better than ever how to mine the internet for great information, and also how to collect, store, and organize that information for future use and even new, creative material to be given back to the community in the form of Tweets, posts, and comments. It helps that I was looking for better ways to use the internet already, so when I was given the opportunity, I really tried to run with it, and I'm very grateful now.

All in all, I learned far above what I learn in the average class in this class, but not so much because of more material to cover or a more insistent professor, but because of wider information resources and more freedom to explore and connect with others on important questions.

Life is a Highway

Don't judge me about the title. I was feeling sentimental when I wrote it. Anyway, let’s start from the beginning. My paper began after reviewing digital dialog posts and talking with classmates. I was really intrigued by both the rhetorical and linguistic aspects of Love’s Labour’s Lost and Henry V, and I couldn’t decide which one to do. However, after doing my literary analysis, I decided that Henry was the way to go. It seemed like nearly everyone disagreed with me in thinking that Henry was an overall good guy, and to be honest, they had some really good points. The comments discouraged me, but they also helped me realize that I really did want to show that Henry is a good person. My friend also helped me realize that Henry is not as black and white as I was making him out to be.

And now I feel like this baby! :)

            Here’s the part where I go around in circles for a couple of weeks. I went from lying and attachment theory to who knows what else. Along the way, I did research, returned to the primary text, and did research again. I was even able to come up with some sort of draft. I tried to be an altruistic scholar and help out others here and there, and I was even able to get some social proof feedback, but as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. At this point, I realized that my thesis was generic and overdone. I had hit a wall. A really big wall. I had to revise my whole thesis and thought process and come up with something that I could be proud to put my name to. Ultimately, I used an idea from another class about sympathy and how it works. I claimed that sympathy is the foundation of rhetoric, and because of this, perhaps Henry’s rhetoric was not as manipulative as many claim it to be. Finally, I have a finished product. It was hard. It was rough, and there may or may not have been some tears along the way, but I learned and I tried. 

Leah's Learning Outcame

History, Context, Genres and Themes, and Ethics  - I felt like I exponentially increased my Shakespeare Literacy by studying the plays, watching the movies, and attending the performance. The different genres make Shakespeare accessible and enjoyable - the setting, characters, diction, allusions, themes, and of course the PLOTS make a lot more sense now.

Secondary Scholarship 

I benefited from the other books and articles and blogs and conversations that I read about Shakespeare and his work. I learned to appreciate all that is available about this and other topics.

Scholarly Research 

1. Gain Shakespeare Literacy 

I loved the things I learned about original Shakespeare and about Shakespeare today. I understand it has a huge part in education and entertainment all over the country, around the world, and across various interests and investments (i.e. Shakespeare video games!). I understand Shakespeare better by getting familiar with him/his works through all these different genres.

2. Analyze Shakespeare Critically 

In my essay I compared A Midsummer Night's Dream to Romeo and Juliet and other plays, and had to think critically to decide why MND is, in my opinion, the best option for teaching ninth graders. This required me to focus on this and the other plays and their similarities and differences, strengths and weaknesses, appeal to audiences, and impact on society. I feel like I own Shakespeare in a whole new manner!

3. Engage Shakespeare Creatively 

When we wrote and filmed our sonnets I felt like this helped me to engage creatively with Shakespeare. That was fun and interesting and provided a bit of insight into the bard’s mind, if nothing else than just to think like a poet for a few minutes.

4. Share Shakespeare Meaningfully 

People said they liked my sonnet that I posted on facebook and google +. That’s a good way to share Shakespeare. And I am hoping that the essay I wrote about how to teach Shakespeare will influence teachers and students in a way that is meaningful. I am excited about the venues to which I submitted my paper. I think all the blogging in class was a sort of way to share Shakespeare meaningfully – not really my cup of tea, but required for this class, so I did it. Talking to people about Shakespeare in person was fun and I plan to do more of that for the rest of my life.

5. Gain Digital Literacy 

I learned how to blog, how to upload videos to youtube, and how to find social media groups about pertinent things, like google communities. My digital literacy has been increased. I might even end up blogging this summer as part of my job. Imagine that! I did not think that this kind of research was necessary or the most valuable way to learn and write about Shakespeare, but I guess every thing has its place somewhere. 

A Tale about Winter and a Paper

  My paper began with a question: Beginnings of Social Process "Do you think tragedy or comedy is more true to life?"  I'd been musing on The Winter's Tale and thought the question I just asked would be intriguing enough to people (ward members, friends, family) who weren't familiar with it to get them involved in my paper. Social Discovery I'd done some Background Research through the subject guides, which involved the mixing of Stanley Wells' academic world and his charming twitter page, and I'd gone back to the text Refer to the Text, but was still confused about how I could combine my thoughts on tragedy v. comedy in a romance AND the supernatural elements of the play, which is what I'd talked to Dr. Burton about.  Both seemed interesting, but I couldn't see the connection, except that there are supernatural elements in romances.  I was directionless.  And I couldn't seem to find an answer to the question of Hermione's coming to life from being a statue. So in the spirit of more, smaller posts, I vented. Encouragement from Classmates in Comments

Story of my paper

The story of my paper all began on a boring, run of the mill, Saturday night. My wife and I were just hanging out and decided to watch a movie at home. This naturally lead us into the Netflix trap. After spending a sizable amount of time just trying to choose a movie we both could agree on we finally settled on a little known Shakespeare adaptation starring Ralph Fiennes and Gerard Butler. After watching this adaptation of Coriolanus I became really intrigued.  The movie was so great I couldn't figure out why this particular Shakespeare play didn't receive as much attention as the others.  Because of this, and my own unfamiliarity with the play, I decided it would be a fun and interesting play to research.

After deciding on my play I really didn't have any idea what particular aspect I wanted to research. Initially, I thought looking into and breaking down the theme of 'exile' but that idea fizzled out pretty fast. Struggling with research ideas actually turned out to be a really helpful process because it caused me to really read between the lines of the primary text. Coriolanus was always on my mind. I was constantly trying to correlate the play to whatever it was I was occupying myself with. Eventually this payed off one night as I was watching T.V. and John Hughes' classic "The Breakfast Club" came on. All of the sudden the lessons I had taken from Coriolanus were being reflected back at me through the character of Andrew. My Breakfast club post goes into greater detail about these ideas. I began to get great feed back from the class about these parallels and I began to explore Coriolanus as the basis of T.V. tropes. I didn't end up following through with these ideas very long as I became more interested in the Nature vs. Nurture aspects of the play.

As I looked at what was causing me to draw comparisons of Coriolanus and other popular T.V. and movie character I found that it was similar nurturing factors in their characters that drew me to them.  As I did more research of the primary text as well as outside research I found that there was a lot of material to support my claim that the tragedy of Coriolanus was the fault of the peoples cultivation of his pride. However, the more I researched the more I felt that my idea was lacking something. Getting some great feedback from Lauren R. and Britton and a meeting from Professor Burton helped me to refine my ideas one last time.  Through their outside perspective I was able to direct my paper more towards the innovations that Shakespeare was doing with the genre of tragedy. Bringing in my research on Nature vs. Nurture as well as applying Aristotle's definition of tragedy. I argued that Shakespeare was transcending the classic ideals of tragedy being defined within the individual by applying the tragedy to society as a whole.

I really appreciated the way this class was set up and how it facilitated the refinement of my paper. Though I didn't have any great enlightening experiences with social media I did have some great enlightening moments with many of my fellow class mates and I feel that made all the difference with the way my paper turned out.

Kaylee Ficklin: “The Role of Sympathy in Henry V’s Rhetoric”

          In Shakespeare’s Henry V, Henry is often seen as a manipulative figure who uses his powerful rhetoric in order to accomplish a self-serving political agenda. Arguably, Henry’s greatest power is his rhetoric, and critics often cite this as his most manipulative tool-the means though which he accomplishes his own selfish desires. Rather than praising his rhetorical abilities, critics question Henry’s motives and point to his rhetoric as the proof of his manipulation. However, “The Role of Sympathy in Henry V’s Rhetoric” provides a different view of Henry. I argue that because Adam Smith’s concept of sympathy contributes a great deal to the foundation of rhetoric, Henry’s character changes. The role that sympathy plays in Henry’s rhetoric changes Henry from a solely manipulative individual to a character able to feel and identify with his audiences. Understanding the role sympathy plays in rhetoric is crucial to understanding Henry.

Once Upon a Research Paper

My research paper started with a small idea and a concept that I was struggling to grasp.  I initially was confused at Iago and his amoral nature as well as the way in which he so easily altered himself and adopted new selves to fulfill his revenge upon Othello.  As I was talking to Steve in class, I realized that I needed something hard as evidence to back this cloudy theory that my paper was standing on.  The true makings of my paper were discovered in the tweethis exercise which helped me pull my ideas together and narrow everything down to one succinct topic and purpose.  The major social proofing I did was in class, with my roommates, or with my High School English teacher and the ideas I fostered there really helped my paper get off the ground in terms of sustenance.  My purpose was truly realized in class talking with Amelia.  The way she discussed her topic, I was able to infer the passion she had for her paper, or at least a great sense of purpose for what she was discussing.  I knew that for my paper to truly be something special, I was going to have to find that same purpose.

Going back through the primary texts, I found that Iago was sensible in his change in "disguise" and even more than that, in reflection of Carl Jung's personality theory, Iago was a deep character, perhaps deeper than any of the other stock characters in the story.  He is a maze of complexity inside a the guise of a purposeless and malicious revenge seeker.  However poor my mini rough draft was, I was able to move past it for the most part after meeting with Dr. Burton and published my final draft just in time, both for the class and for the submissions that we all made.

Rachel Talks about Learning Outcomes

1. Gain Shakespeare Literacy
     a. Breadth (knowledge of a range of Shakespeare's works)
    I started out this semester as a Shakespeare skeptic.  I felt like I had had a lot of exposure to Shakespeare (A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Othello).  But then we/I read the Shakespearean sonnets this semester, delved into The Taming of the Shrew and women's roles; discussed Shakespeare's history plays (including reading Henry V); and explored the depths of Macbeth's treacherous mind in Macbeth.  We analyzed King Lear and tackled the crazy romanticism of The Winter's Tale.  I can now honestly say that I have an appreciation for Shakespeare, that he is no longer categorized in my brain as the famous playwright who totally appealed to the masses in his tale of two star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet.  I appreciated that we explored his different genres, as I'd never read his history plays and really enjoyed Henry V and never read his romances.  I think my understanding of Shakespeare could only have come as I was exposed to his different works and realized how dynamic a playwright he was.

Learning Outcomes in Reflection

 

1. Gain Shakespeare Literacy 

a. Breadth (knowledge of a range of Shakespeare's works):

Throughout the class, I was exposed to four of Shakespeare’s plays that I had never personally read.  To a certain degree, I wish we had stuck more closely to his works and been exposed to more, but it was a great experience to become more familiar with King Lear, Taming of the Shrew, Henry V, and The Winter’s Tale.  Beyond the reading of the plays, interacting with my classmates and reading through their papers, I became more familiar with a broad range of Shakespeare’s plays and on top of that, varying analyses of these.

b. Depth (more thorough knowledge of a single work):

The majority of the class I spent analyzing Shakespeare’s Othello, a play I had previously read in high school, but never in the way that I did during this course.  In the effort to find my own analysis of the work, I was introduced again to the play in an entirely new way and became more familiar with it than I ever could have in High School.

c. Performance (stage and screen):

I had the opportunity to watch film versions of Taming of the Shrew, Henry V, and King Lear.  On top of that, I went and saw the children’s stage version of Henry V.  These productions illustrated to me the true nature of Shakespeare and the way in which it should be produced.  Shakespeare is first and foremost a playwright, and his works have been perpetuated because they can be reproduced and adapted in a myriad of ways.

d. Legacy (history, scholarship, popular culture):

I wrote papers on The Winter’s Tale and on Othello.  This experience introduced me to the background histories of these plays, the staggering amount of scholarship, and the way in which these particular plays have been adapted into pop culture.  Shakespeare has a remarkable presence and his influence has leached into today’s society just as much as he did during his own time.  Movie adaptations baring his plot themes and characters have introduced the masses to Shakespeare’s mastery often without them even realizing it.  His wide range of plays has developed into a remarkable standard for today’s authors to achieve.  He applies to the scholarly just as much as to pop culture as I have come to realize more and more throughout this course.

2. Analyze Shakespeare Critically 

The final research paper that took up a majority of this class has become a remarkable learning experience in terms of familiarity with Shakespeare.  There is so much room for analysis and the perpetuation of his works is better realized in the amount of time I spent researching, a time period that could have carried on and I still would have been discovering new things, new ways of looking at his works.  Studying Othello, helped open up that world to me and the potential there is in studying and analyzing Shakespeare’s works critically.  Even with all the scholarship already accomplished, spanning decades, there is still room for my own analysis.

3. Engage Shakespeare Creatively

At the beginning of the semester, we were assigned a sonnet, mirroring the pattern of Shakespeare.  The assignment, to be honest, terrified me, because I am no poet.  In the process of writing that sonnet, however feeble it was, I spent the time to read many of Shakespeare’s sonnets and watch readings of them on YouTube.  I was thoroughly introduced to the pattern of those sonnets the sheer prowess with which Shakespeare wrote them.

4. Share Shakespeare Meaningfully 

My roommates and I often discuss the things we are researching in our classes.  My roommate Paige in particular is a psychology major and discussing Shakespeare with her is always an interesting journey through the literature.  She especially inspired and helped me through my final paper.  Blogging about my research and the assignments on Digital Dialogue to share our insights on the literature tended toward tedium, but as we got deeper into the course appreciated them nonetheless.  I was able to build off the insights of others and it helped with beneficial discussions during class time that really introduced me to Shakespeare’s work better than anything else could have.

5. Gain Digital Literacy 

This, for me, was probably the most difficult part of the course, but it did help me along with the research process and introduced me to information that I never could have approached.  I learned a lot about blogging and social media and how reaching out to other people can really aid in how we read and interpret Shakespeare, especially in today’s society where technology plays such a big role.