A Bit Confused: My Response to Leah

Leah, I just read your draft on teaching Shakespeare in high schools, and I left it a bit confused. It didn't sound like the paper I had been reading about or talking with you about. I felt like you were making too many claims, and I didn't know where to focus my attention. Here are some things that threw me for a loop and some ways to help things feel more cohesive.

Literacy?
Maybe this is the snobby academic in me, but I wasn't quite sure what you meant by literacy. It seems to me that there are a lot of definitions for that word, only one of which you're addressing: the literacy of wanting to read outside of school. As other peers have said in the comments, finding sources to back you up on this would be extremely helpful.

I went to a panel at Life, the Universe, and Everything this year that dealt with this topic. Rachel Wadham, the person presenting, works in the BYU Library in the juvenile fiction section. You should talk with her about the literacy you're addressing. I'm sure she could point you to a lot of great sources.

Relatable?
I feel like your argument is going in two different directions. On the one hand, you're saying that kids have to read things that are relatable to them in order to latch on to reading. On the other, you list all the bad things that happen in their world and why we should avoid teaching Shakespearean works with these things. But wouldn't Romeo and Juliet be relatable if it exemplifies the types of things they are facing? Couldn't teachers use that text to intervene in unhealthy teenage love and suicides?

Also, I think it's really problematic to say that Shakespeare is going to be more relatable to kids than something translated from Korean or German. My first question is, how do you know? Works in translation might actually spark a love for reading that Early Modern English couldn't. My second question: isn't that just reenforcing Eurocentrism? Though kids have to find things they can identify with in texts, I think it's myopic to shut down works in translation because they're not from the same culture. Kids should be learning about other cultures to, not just being pandered to in things they already know. They could discover the same emotional conflicts in these stories from different cultures and thus come to like reading and expand their mindset.

Common Core?
I know that the Common Core is a big deal in public education, but I didn't feel like it was very well grounded in the paper. Maybe find ways of showing that MND is more in line with the Common Core than R&J. Again, Rachel Wadham would be a great resource for this. She's all about getting fantasy literature into classrooms, and you'll love talking with her.

I hope that helps!