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Why do we still make students suffer with Shakespeare?
As a literature teacher the most expeditious way of striking fear into the depth of every student’s heart can be accomplished with the simple utterance of one word, ‘Shakespeare’.
The laments and cries from the student body of “God no!” or “what’s the point” thunder around the classroom like a hammer blow on an ironmongers anvil. But do they have a point? Is Shakespeare revered amongst the ‘literati’ yet holds no purpose to the generation in 2024?
As an unapologetic bibliophile l say to you, yes, yes, yes. Shakespeare’s work is in every way as important today as it was when it was written. What has changed is our perspective and, mea culpa, the failure of many literature teachers to properly enlighten the student to the intricacies of his works (or worse, avoid his works like the plague and not teach them!).
Although his vocabulary is complex and tasking for the student, it helps to broaden their lexis, however, when studying his works we must focus not just on vocabulary, although this is the most obvious problem for a generation who finds it hard to reach the end of chapter 1 of any novel. We must tease out the universal themes which he deals with, universal due to the fact that they were relevant in his time, but also in ours. Our students past, present and future can still relate to these. They…
