So while I was reading chapter two of William Kist’s book The Socially Networked Classroom, a particular passage caught my eye. 

“I ran in to one of my former students recently who wandered if I still had a copy of the video adaptation they had done-an urban street video version of “The knight’s Tale” from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales… I challenge any British literature teacher to name a project that would have the students still talking about Chaucer 10 years later.” (pg22)

This got me to thinking.  In high school I knew all kinds of kids that while reading works such as Chaucer, Milton, Swift, and Shakespeare were bored out of their minds.  While I unlike others in my class knew that I wanted to farther my education in English; none the less, other did not.  Not only did many of them who had various employment opportunities lined up for right after graduation wonder “why do I need to learn this,” but “what the hell is this guy saying”.   Unlike my peers I enjoyed reading, interpreting, and analyzing works of great authors.  I could never get enough.  Despite my teachers best efforts she could never get certain students involved, especially into Shakespeare’s plays. 

I am a huge fan of Shakespeare, not only for his beautiful poetic verses, but also for his stories and plots.  Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Macbeth, all have the classic elements of a great story; love, betrayal, murder, suspense; all the ingredients for a spectacular story. To introduce Shakespeare and his many plays to my future students I would like propose breaking my students up into groups and have them make videos of modern day translations of the acts; and then combined each groups to create the full play.

 I believe this way of learning a Shakespearean play would be a very engaging activity.  If students learned what Shakespeare’s plays were really about then I believe it would create a student that would be more eager to spend the time to learn and read Shakespeare’s and other works in the Elizabethan language. Not only would the students find the experience stimulating to be watching their peers and judging who developed the most compelling scene.  The students would be analyzing and interpreting their scene for themselves; and would be witnessing Shakespeare’s play how they truly are supposed to be.  Shakespeare’s works were never meant to be read like they are in so many classrooms across the United States, they were meant to be preformed.