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While perusing the first two chapters of Teaching Shakespeare by Rex Gibson, I truly enjoyed and agreed with many of the author’s statements on the benefits of teaching Shakespeare. Gibson addresses why Shakespeare should be taught and methods of teaching Shakespeare that engage students and increase their understanding of the text/script, the world around them, and themselves.

Certain suggestions and activities seemed to work quite well. I agree that a play should be taught as a script; this gives students the power for their own interpretation and enactment. I want my students to increase their independent critical thinking skills and not just look to me for the answers (especially as there may be multiple answers, and I don’t have them all). However, a teacher should be a guiding force when students come across unfamiliar language. I intend to work in Gibson’s writing prompt for The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet (in which students ponder what began the feud) as a chance for my students to show their creativity, intellect, and work on personal style. This prompt also connects to “real life” as I believe that it is important for students to question the origins of issues, conflict, and more in literature and in life. I also loved that Gibson suggested that students act out various scenes and monologues. He states that “the physical enactment of the imagery is an effective spur to student discussion” and that “Shakespeare’s stage directions are obvious invitations to imaginative acting out… they invite performance” (Gibson, 1998, p. 14). Last semester, I taught 9^th graders The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet and had them do brief performances and had one group perform a whole scene for a project. I found that students really get excited about acting sections out and think more deeply about characterization and plot in order to create an excellent performance (also, integrated movement tends to ingrain knowledge more deeply, at least for me).

However, I must wonder how a teacher can incorporate a large number of these activities and still finish studying the text within a limited amount of time. In college, a teacher is able to focus on just Shakespeare for a whole semester. In high school, students must cover a broad amount of literature in one semester (block scheduling). Last semester, it took three weeks to go through The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet in order for my students to really understand and enjoy the play. Then, another half of a week was taken up in presenting their group projects on the play. I have been told by my mentor teacher that I need to cut back on the amount of time that it took to study Shakespeare because other works needed more time afterwards than they received. While I love teaching students Shakespeare, I cannot let the unit take up too much of the semester. I have to teach short stories, poetry, the Odyssey, non-fiction stories, and other parts of curriculum. I do not know how I would incorporate all of these interesting and engaging lessons without taking away from time for other equally important portions of class.