Louise, Jose, Irene
Context
For our practica, we will be teaching Shakespeare’s Macbeth to Grade 11 students. One of the barriers we feel students will experience is the gap between Shakespearean language and Modern English. Initially, we thought of researching through academia to find the best strategies to bridge the two languages together to be accessible to secondary students. However we found that we had to look at why students faced this difficulty first, before providing solutions.
Research Question
To this end, we ask the question: why do students have difficulties with Early Modern English? Our research will focus on providing students the means to understand the history of Shakespearean English. We want to investigate the context of Shakespeare’s writing and how Shakespeare sat on the cusp of the Great Vowel Shift, where words, spelling, and pronunciation were undergoing major shifts. Developing technology, like the printing press, influenced these changes, and word spelling became more concrete.
By providing the context of when Shakespeare was writing, we hope to provide students a better understanding of why the language is so different. Aside from context, we also want to provide students with the idea that Shakespeare’s works were meant to be performed, not read; an idea that seems obvious, but is lost in the academic environment of an English classroom. We hope to emphasize the importance of teaching Shakespeare through performance.
Research Approach
Our research approach is to sift through academia to examine the language shifts occurring during Shakespeare’s era that could have influenced his writing. We will compile a researchers journal of our sources and findings.
Expected Conclusions
In examining the gap between Shakespearean English and Modern English, we anticipate a plethora of information and scholarship on this topic. Our challenge will be to strike a balance between an emphasis on language and arguments for multi-modal teaching strategies. We also expect our research to lead to an investigation of publication history and Early Modern scholarship. Finally, we hope for our thoughts to culminate in interesting potential final project ideas for students (i.e. parallels to digital technologies for writing- blogging, texting etc.).
Preliminary Bibliography (8 to 10 Articles)
1.Porter, Christina. “Words, Words, Words: Reading Shakespeare with English Language Learners.” English Journal Benton, Michael.
2. “Visualizing Narrative: Bridging the “Aesthetic Gap”.” Journal of Aesthetic Education 33.2 (1999): 33-49. Print.99.1 (2009): 44-9. Print.
3. Desmet, Christy. “Teaching Shakespeare with YouTube.”English Journal 99.1 (2009): 65-70. Print.
4. Sedgwick, Fred. Resources for Teaching Shakespeare 11-16. New York: Continuum International Pub, 2011. Print.
5. Haddon, John. Teaching Reading Shakespeare. New York: Routledge, 2009. Print.
6. Shand, G. B. Teaching Shakespeare: Passing it on., 2009. Print.
7.”Teaching Shakespeare.” Shakespeare Quarterly 35.5 (1984): 513-656. Print.
8. Davis, James E., Ed, Ohio Univ., Athens. Dept. of English Language and Literature, and Southeastern Ohio Council of Teachers of English. “Teaching Shakespeare.” Focus: Teaching English in Southeastern Ohio 2.3 (1976)Print.
9. Creating a Context for Shakespeare with Historical Fiction. Martha Tuck Rozett (THIS ONE IS A MAYBE)
10. Ai Chun, Yen. “Our Languages Clicked: Shakespeare In EFL Classes.” Asian EFL Journal 12.4 (2010): 33-50. Education Research Complete. Web. 3 Jan. 2013.
11. Rothenberg, Sally Sue, and Susan M. Watts. “Students with Learning Difficulties Meet Shakespeare: Using a Scaffolded Reading Experience.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 40.7 (1997): 532-9. Print.
12. Birmingham, Peter, and Chris Davies. “Storyboarding Shakespeare: Learners’ Interactions with Storyboard Software in the Process of Understanding Difficult Literary Texts.” Journal of Information Techology for Teacher Education 10.3 (2001): 241-56. Print.