Inquiry II Seminar

I love this inquiry idea simply because I feel that the research behind this will benefit so many English high school teachers (including myself!) Knowing this will help us to make better lesson and unit plans. It is so easy for students to get caught up in the language barriers that actually visualizing the plays as plays becomes increasingly difficult. Understanding Shakespeare’s England will be of great use to students, and could be used especially as an introduction into any Shakespeare unit.

What a great topic! As Annie said already, I think pursuing this area of inquiry will result in research that could be used by many of us in classrooms with virtually any level of learner. Knowing the background to Shakespeare and having a better idea of the circumstances of day-to-day life in Elizabethan England will, I think, absolutely support your students at they tackle the unfamiliar language that his plays are written in.

Additionally, I’m a total geek about publishing, and so the fact that you want to bring up the printing press and the changes that it made possible in terms of standardizing language is something I find especially exciting. This might be a good segue into a discussion of copyright, too, if that’s something you want to include, as – back in Shakespeare’s time (and you may know this already) – the printers, not the authors, held the rights to the work they produced.

Great idea! I look forward to seeing what you three uncover.

Hi all,

As I mentioned in providing oral feedback, I think this is a rich topic. In my experience it is helpful for students to understand the linguistic and technological shifts that conspired to make English generally a rather difficult language to learn, in part because pronunciation isn’t reflected in spelling (e.g., the pronunciation of the digraph “gh” in words like ghost and knight, etc.). In researching the “great vowel shift” (GVS), however, you’ll also find some scholars think the amount of shift was overstated in early research on the topic (Stockwell, 2002).

I suppose a key thing, irrespective of the difficulty of English generally, is to determine exactly what features of Early Modern English (EME), or of Shakespearean text generally, cause problems for novice students of literature. Roessingh (1999) suggests that for ESL students in mainstream classes the challenge is gaps in cultural knowledge and difficulty understanding the language of metaphor common in Shakespeare. Articles such as Roessingh’s detailing the troubles ESL students face in understanding Shakespeare will be helpful in considering the challenges first language students face as well. Haddon (2009) has written a book, _Teaching Reading Shakespeare_, that reviews several of these challenges, which may turn out to be a key resource for you. When last I checked the full electronic text was available through the UBC Library.

A cautionary word: you may find some articles (generally non-academic articles) that suggest Shakespeare invented thousands of words, and it may be tempting to say this is another reason his language is difficult: the vocabulary is rich and unique, including randomly invented words! The latter is true: Shakespeare’s vocabulary is rich and unique; the former is not necessarily true: Shakespeare was in a position to be among the first to record English language, which at the time was primarily oral. He didn’t necessarily invent words — he more likely recorded words already in use orally.

Finally, teaching Shakespeare through performance (theatre, film, performance exercises) is in my estimation the richest approach, and the approach that most makes sense in dealing with dramatic text. If you search the phrase “teaching Shakespeare through performance” you’ll find many resources that provide a rationale for the benefit of the approach as well as multiple strategies (e.g., Rocklin, 2005).

I look forward to hearing how this project is coming along later today!

Teresa

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References

Haddon, J. (2009). Teaching reading Shakespeare. Routledge.

Lutz, A. (2004). The first push: A prelude to the Great Vowel Shift. Anglia-Zeitschrift für englische Philologie, 122(2), 209-224.

Minkova, D., & Stockwell, R. (Eds.). (2002). Studies in the history of the English language: a millennial perspective (Vol. 39). De Gruyter Mouton.

Rocklin, E. L. (2005). Performance approaches to teaching Shakespeare. National Council of Teachers of English.

Roessingh, H. (1999). Adjunct support for high school ESL learners in mainstream English classes: Ensuring success. TESL Canada Journal, 17(1), 72-86.

Stockwell, R. (2002). How much shifting actually occurred in the historical English vowel shift?. Topics in English Linguistics, 39, 267-282.

Hello everyone,

I know you’re not focusing on resources for making teaching and learning Early Modern English easier, but I bet there are tons of activities involving students’ use of the language. By having students use it themselves, either by using “Shakespearean insults,” trying to have conversations using the language, etc., it might show students that the language is non-threatening and they can have fun with it. I think many times, students are turned off to reading the plays because they are unfamiliar with the language and that scares them. I’m interested in finding out if this is true!

Rita

This proposal is very intriguing! I’m also teaching Macbeth to grade 11s and was considering a focus on language and performance. What I was feeling most unsure about was whether or not this approach would necessitate a very close reading of the text. In exploring why students often struggle with EME, do you anticipate the need to bring linguistics into the classroom, or will it be enough for you (the teacher…) to have a grasp of the fundamental differences between EME and modern English?

I’m really looking forwards to your presentation! This is very relevant to English teachers since Shakespeare is one of the only authors mentioned by name in the IRP and no matter which of his plays we end up teaching, this will be helpful in our lesson planning. It would also be interesting to look at what made Shakespeare so significant for English literature and not just . It might be interesting to teach a class other playwrights of the English Renaissance or show primary sources like letters and such to show students that this language isn’t just Shakespeare, it’s what people in the past spoke and a part of the language’s history.

Here’s the Poetry out loud link:

http://poetryoutloud.org/poems-and-performance/listen-to-poetry

Yes, I agree with the comments above. Crucial topic. I’m also doing Shakespeare (Romeo and juliet), but in an ELL classroom, and I’m waffling on how to present the play accessibly so as not to overwhelm the young minds. Professor James recommended using audio recordings as a way to mimic the experience of many working and lower class audience members listening “in the pits” at the Globe and other theatres. These folks could only watch fragments of the play (unless they were very tall) but could hear actors’ voices rather well. I look forward to reading and discussing this topic with you further.