Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Julius Caesar as a Vehicle for Teaching Rhetoric

So I have decided that my tweethis shall be: In the play, Julius Caesar, Shakespeare focuses greatly on the power and importance of rhetoric and thus this play is a tremendous asset to secondary school teachers who teach this tradition to their students and should be used as a vehicle for teaching both Shakespeare and the importance of rhetoric.

LLL Annotated Bibliography


Revised Thesis: 

The inconsistencies are in Love’s Labour’s Lost, such as the divergent ending, can be explained because the play is an original story by Shakespeare and not a retelling of a familiar story. I want to prove that Shakespeare ended this play without a happy ending to reflect of the history of the times, write for a specific audience, and a show some originality in his first story he created.

Bibliography:

Social Graph:

  • Roommates-Vary from English to Psycology to nursing, so I will get all degrees on the scale from familiar to completely lost
  • Family-We all went and saw Hamlet together so they are all familiar with Shakespeare though not with this play. Still they are up-to-date on media and pop culture so they will have good insights
  • Professors-I am taking the Tudor Sonnets class from Kim Johnson. I could probably ask her for direction and obtain social proof
  • Classmates-With the blog going not I feel better knowing I can post if I get lost and need help.
New Media:

Social Networks:

  • Facebook, though a large portion of my friends don’t speak English
  • Any other groups I stumble across in my research
Traditional Scholarly Sources


Revised Thesis Statement and Annotated Bibliography

Thesis Statement:

In his works Othello, Hamlet, and _______, Shakespeare addresses universally applicable themes such as communication and trust that are important for secondary students to understand.


After some thinking and reading comments on my last post, I have decided to focus my research on teachings secondary students about honesty and communication by using Othello and other Shakespeare plays. I am not familiar with many of Shakespeare's works however, and so would love feedback and some guidance from those who read plays with themes that could apply. I also am struggling a little bit to make my thesis argumentative, and would love to hear any thoughts/ideas. I want to explore these themes in two or three (I think too many more than that would be too large of a task) of Shakespeare's plays as well as explore the concept of how things are not as they seem ("honest Iago," for example).


Annotated Bibliography:
Social Graph
There are a few people that I think would be good to keep in contact with as I move forward on my research. One of them is my brother, Steven. We are close in age, and so have grown up together and have always bounced ideas off of one another. Another person is my friend Emily, who is an English major at another university. A third person is one of my favorite high school English teachers Dianne Madsen. She might be hard to get a hold of, but she would be a great resource.

I am on both Facebook and Twitter. I don't use Twitter as much, but I think I can work harder on that network because it is such a good way to reach out to a wider audience than Facebook.

Twelfth Night Tweethis and Bibliography

My updated Thesis is:

Twelfth Night is a valuable play to be studied by junior high students as an introduction to Shakespeare because of its insights into human nature and cultural changes, interesting historical context, and entertaining qualities.

Do you think this is specific or arguable enough?

Annotated Bibliography:

Social Graph:
As far as a social graph I've got my cousin, Grayson. He's an actor and he's probably very familiar with Shakespeare. My old roommate Kirsten got a degree in English Teaching and would have helpful insights.  My mom will she listen to whatever I say and provide me with intelligent responses. My roommate Jocelyn Gray, like my mom, will listen to whatever I say, and she comes from a different perspective. 

Jessica's Taming of the Shrew Annotated Bibliography



Social Graphmy friends, dinner group, work associates, goodreads, parents, teachers

New Media
Social Networks
Goodreads Shakespeare Group I’m posting my “Tweethis” here and seeing what response I get, Facebook ditto!

Traditional Scholarly Sources

  • Smith, Amy L. “Performing Marriage with a Difference: Wooing, Wedding, and Bedding in The Taming of the Shrew.Comparative Drama 36, nos. 3-4 (fall-winter 2002-2003): 289-320.
  • Martins, Maria Lúcia Milléo. “The Taming of the Shrew:  Shakespeare’s Theater of Repetition.” In Foreign Accents: Brazilian Readings of Shakespeare, edited by Aimara da Cunha Resends, pp. 126-37. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2002.
  • This has the changing ideas of marriage and how women are supposed to behave and act even though they are the vehicles through which men receive property and money.
  • Crocker, Holly A. “Affective Resistance: Performing passivity and Playing A-Part in The Taming of the Shrew.Shakespeare Quarterly 54, no.2 (summer 2003): 142-59.
  • Argues that feminine virtue is a performance that allows women to obtain their desires of free agency within the play.


Revised Thesis

Although Kate’s subservient attitude seems to be simply submission to her husband’s will, it is actually her shaping and controlling both her husband and their marriage. This movement of power from the man to the woman showcases the changing concepts of an Elizabethan marriage.

Most everyone seemed to like the thesis I had so I turned to the information from reading some blogs that I had found.  One characterized Beatrice as a Shrew for always speaking her mind and yet she often portrayed as being well liked which is in direct contrast to Kate.  I thought of how both Kate and Beatrice seem to receive that which they wish in the end, whether it is going to Bianca's wedding feast or reading the love note/marrying Benedict.  Other blogs discussed how power is wielded by the women because they manipulate the men.  And so I tried to clarify that point in my thesis above to show what I had learned.

Teaching Shakespeare in the 21st Century


After some deliberation, and a helpful comment from Ian on my last post, I've decided that I am going to focus my paper on teaching Shakespeare in a junior high/high school setting. I mentioned originally that my focus applied very specifically to A Midsummer Night's Dream, but with some comments from Kasey and Catherine I've decided to expand it and focus more on the teaching aspect. I'm not sure how I'll end up tying A Midsummer Night's Dream into this, but I'm currently thinking that this play will be a vehicle to demonstrate how someone could actually use my research in the classroom. 

At this point my very short "tweethis" statement would be: The way that Shakespeare is taught in high schools needs to be adapted to better fit the 21st century. (Notice that I don't say exactly how it needs to change... but it's a work in progress, right? :) And here's my annotated bibliography sharing some of the ways that I'm hoping to gain insight into my topic/better focus my tweethis: