Dear Amelia,
I am looking forward to helping you with your paper. I want to be helpful enough to be able offer you some nugget of wisdom to give you encouragement or to push you forward in your work.
Before I get to far into this post, I want to say that I am available as a sound board, as needed! I have changed my text and topic so many times that my head is spinning. No matter what stage of the process you are in, I want to act as a listener.
However, I'm having difficulty seeing what concrete ideas you want to write about.
I understand what AUDIENCE that it is you want to write to/for: Young Adults. And what play: Measure for Measure. A great start and an interesting subject group.
In Exploring your past posts, this is what stuck to me most,*Shakespeare's eternal
(?) influence on literature and how it
compares to literature of today"
(particularly in YA literature.) *
And what lessons/morals Shakespeare's work teaches said audience.
Here are my questions:
Is there a specific YA piece that you're interested in using as a case study? What work in particular do you feel Shakespeare has influenced today? Or is it just YA lit in general?
Is this still the topic that you want to pursue?
Is this still the play that you want to use?
Does it matter that YA literature is influenced by Shakespeare? Why?
I am looking forward to seeing what happens with your ideas!
Kara posed what seemed to me as some really relevant questions. Amelia - I've read some of your past posts and something that stood out to me was the concept of "lessons" being embedded within Shakespeare's works. Ok, well what kind of lessons does YA fiction teach? How do they coincide with the lessons taught in Measure for Measure? Does YA fiction, in your opinion, focus on lessons of morality due to the age group it's geared towards? Does Shakespeare's work focus on morality? How does the audience the literature is written for affect the lessons contained therein?
ReplyDeletei've been thinking more about having my paper argue that Measure for Measure is a better play to use in high school classrooms over Romeo and Juliet since a lot of the lessons taught in the play are about mercy vs justice, morality and even government issues. It made me realize how little importance this play receives, when it teaches such grand lessons as staying true to yourself and how virtue is strength
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting idea, Amelia. Leah's kind of doing something similar with A Midsummer Night's Dream, I think.
ReplyDeleteYep, that's what Leah is doing. Perhaps you guys should chat.
ReplyDelete