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When I was in school we were never assigned reading Shakespeare as homework, it was always done by reading it out loud in class, rotating parts every several li
by a-priori 8y ago
When I was in school we were never assigned reading Shakespeare as homework, it was always done by reading it out loud in class, rotating parts every several lines, with the teacher interjecting whenever something needed to be explained.
- sametmax 8y agoHearing a kid struggling to read Shakespeare is even worst that reading it in your head. Acting is hard. But most kids can't even read out loud a newspaper add decently.
- tropo 8y agoThis is a reason to read it out loud. Reading difficulties are going undiagnosed because teachers seldom hear students read, especially past the first couple years. Even in the more advanced tracks (ability levels), many students are unable to smoothly read with proper phrasing. It really is torture to listen to some people read.
- sametmax 8y agoThat's my point: don't use Shakespeare for that. Use something simple and agreeable, even if you read it in a terrible way. Read video game news, celebrity gossip, science development, sport results, etc.
- pavel_lishin 8y agoI never thought about reading out loud as a diagnostic method. Dang.
- petecox 8y agoBen notes in the (second) extended video that perhaps 80% of Elizabethans were illiterate and that plays are to be performed, not read. He'd prefer that Shakespeare be introduced first by the drama department in early secondary school so that kids as young as 13 or 15 could perform Romeo and Juliet at their intended character ages - thus bringing the work to life. And that only once they've experienced the energy of performance that later in final years of 16-17 should they study it formally in English Literature classes.
- dmix 8y agoInteresting, that sounds like the perfect solution to above problem. This reminds me of reading I needed to learn C++ to make games back in the early 2000s, because that was what all games were made with. I probably missed 3-4yrs of programming exposure because I found C++ so impenetrable from the local library books I got on the subject. Working from appreciation of the subject matter, to a light introduction to the inner workings, to the hairy details of how it was all put together seems to be the ideal approach. Although this analogy may be a bit more niche and involved, the idea of being forced to read Shakespeare at a young age before being able to really appreciate the plays in production, with all of it's subtleties, seems comparable to attempting to pushing their heads into C++ before they appreciate the basic mechanics of game construction.