How is Sh
akespeare Modern?Every time I tell someone I am studying to become an English Language Arts teacher, I am asked, “You must love Shakespeare, right?” I respond the same way almost every time, saying, “Yes I do! But not because of Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet, but because Shakespeare’s themes stand the test of time.” Thankfully, my answer usually stops them from asking if I could recite one of my “favourite Shakespeare quotes of all time!”
In the fall of 2013, during my Undergraduate studies in English Literature at McGill University, I registered for a course called “Literature and Society: How Shakespeare Created Modern Society” (course code ENGL 345). First, let me explain how we, the students, defined modernity, and recognized similarities between Shakespeare’s characters and ourselves as “modern beings.” As a class, we came to a consensus that modernity in the twenty-first century can be defined through multiple facets. Here are a few:
- My family does not define my identity and my values, nor does my culture.
- I have a liberal mindset. Societal constructs are built, not inherent.
- I do not have a clear or stable identity.
- In modernity, each person has, in principle, a right to a public voice, a high
degree of mobility, an ability to connect with people all over the world, the
power of self-realization and self-definition.
- I can speak my mind in public, especially by way of new media.
The last definition of modernity, “I can speak my mind in public, especially by way of new media,” is an important dimension of Russell Scott Smith’s assignment that he gave his high school English class in Connecticut. In the article, “Teachers Shake Up Shakespeare with Digital Media,” Smith demonstrates how allowing his students to emulate the playwright, adapt Shakespeare’s original words into a new song, rap, or dialogue, and then perform the remixed work and upload the videos on media platforms like YouTube enhance his students understanding of the text (Smith, 2010). YouTube, as described by Michael Hoechsmann and Stuart R. Poyntz, is one of many “content delivery platforms […] [that] can be used to extend the reach of youth communication” (2012, p. 160), which encourages students to feel as though their voices are being heard and matter in shaping the curriculum. Using the example of his student, Terry’s, rap, Smith highlights, “adapting the play into a modern rap helped Terry understand the Bard's old English prose. ‘I'd never had a chance to interpret one of Shakespeare's stories in a contemporary way before,’ he says. ‘Shakespeare's stories are timeless’” (Smith, 2010). A discussion about using technology and the Internet safely, as well as explaining the difference between public and private postings, will have to take place, of course, but we need to understand that the youth is already using YouTube and social networks independently, so why should we deny the merging of education and media in the classroom?
Allowing our students the opportunity to rewrite Shakespeare’s timeless lines gives them the chance to manipulate the text and engage in active communication with Shakespeare’s themes and characters. In discussing the importance and the integration of the student’s voice in the classroom environment, Michael Fielding asks, “Do we require a formal language which earns students the right to dialogue or do we accept a more diverse discourse that betrays different standpoints and preoccupations to our own?” (2001, p. 102). Traditional Idealist education places emphasis on the requirement of the teacher as a guide; however, with the advent of new media platforms in the twenty-first century, we, as teachers, ought to consider what we can learn from our students who are engaging with media and new technologies on a daily basis. With Smith’s lesson specifically, Shakespeare is no longer the sole, omnipotent, voice of his texts; rather, Smith is breaking down the barrier between formal and informal languages in order to get to the important aspect of the text, which is the content.
As Fielding discusses the divide in the classroom environment between who is allowed to speak and who is listening, I believe that Smith’s lesson in reshaping Shakespeare’s words and uploading his students’ videos on YouTube’s public platform reinterprets the student’s position in the classroom from the passive recipient to the active producer of content; thus, moving away from a banking concept of education, as critiqued by Paulo Freire (2012, p. 380). As Smith emphasizes that “[p]osting their short films online allows students to experience a level of relevance that only a public medium like YouTube can offer. Suddenly, homework assignments become works of art that anyone might download, watch, and maybe even enjoy,” (Smith, 2010), we see the significance and necessity of interactive technologies in the classroom, as they “provide increased opportunities for youth to develop the competencies to participate in contemporary culture […]” (Rogers, 2010, p. 133).
Ultimately, as students reinterpret Shakespeare’s tales, they are engaging in the same act of production and reproduction as Shakespeare did. Discussing Shakespeare’s respective DIY production, Smith explains, “Shakespeare was the 16th-century equivalent of a remix artist. Most of his plots were borrowed from other authors, and several of his plays were written on the fly in collaboration with others. He would have probably approved of today's participatory culture, in which students simultaneously create and consume art” (Smith, 2010). By anchoring the lesson in the concept of DIY production, specifically fanfiction that merges with filming, the student is introduced to the concept of “being in the world,” presented by Lankshear and Knobel (2010, p. 13). Shakespeare was his century’s version of Bruns’ notion of the “produser [as an] ‘active’ and ‘productive’ user […] of content created, developed, modified, and shared by a community. That is, produsers use rather than consume […]” (Knobel & Lankshear, 2010, p. 10). Just like Shakespeare, students are able to take a story with an original plot and words, and adapt the story through DIY techniques to fit a contemporary and relevant issue for each student. Not only are Smith’s students working with the fanfiction genre of DIY production to cement their understanding of the texts, in uploading their videos to YouTube, they are part of a global communication platform, in which other students can engage in critical media literacy in response to the videos of fellow learners.
Here is the link to the original article:
http://www.edutopia.org/teaching-shakespeare-digital-media
Bibliography
Fielding, M. (2001). Beyond the rhetoric of student voice: New departures or new constraints in the transformation of 21st century schooling? Paper presented at the Forum for promoting 3-19 comprehensive education.
Freire, P. (2012). Pedagogy of the oppressed (selection). In S.M. Cahn (Ed.), Classic and contemporary readings in the philosophy of education (2nd ed.) (pp. 379-386). Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press.
Hoechsmann, M., & Poyntz, S. R. (2012). Media literacy 2.0: Contemporary media practices. In Media literacies a critical introduction (pp. 151-190). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. [e-book available through McGill library].
Knobel, M., & Lankshear, C. (2010). Chapter 1. In Knobel, M., & Lankshear, C. (Eds.)., DIY Media: Creating, sharing and learning with new technologies. New York, NY: Peter Lang http://everydayliteracies.net/files/DIY_Media_ms.pdf.
Rogers, T. (2010). Theorizing Media Productions as Complex Literacy Performances Among Youth In and Out of Schools. In D. Pullen & D. Cole (Eds.), Multiliteracies and Technology Enhanced Education: Social Practice and the Global Classroom (pp. 133-146). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
Smith, Russell Scott. (2010, January 19). Teachers Shake Up Shakespeare with Digital Media: Rap and film bring the Bard’s characters to life for high school students [Web log post]. Retrieved August 7, 2014, from http://www.edutopia.org/teaching-shakespeare-digital-media.
In the fall of 2013, during my Undergraduate studies in English Literature at McGill University, I registered for a course called “Literature and Society: How Shakespeare Created Modern Society” (course code ENGL 345). First, let me explain how we, the students, defined modernity, and recognized similarities between Shakespeare’s characters and ourselves as “modern beings.” As a class, we came to a consensus that modernity in the twenty-first century can be defined through multiple facets. Here are a few:
- My family does not define my identity and my values, nor does my culture.
- I have a liberal mindset. Societal constructs are built, not inherent.
- I do not have a clear or stable identity.
- In modernity, each person has, in principle, a right to a public voice, a high
degree of mobility, an ability to connect with people all over the world, the
power of self-realization and self-definition.
- I can speak my mind in public, especially by way of new media.
The last definition of modernity, “I can speak my mind in public, especially by way of new media,” is an important dimension of Russell Scott Smith’s assignment that he gave his high school English class in Connecticut. In the article, “Teachers Shake Up Shakespeare with Digital Media,” Smith demonstrates how allowing his students to emulate the playwright, adapt Shakespeare’s original words into a new song, rap, or dialogue, and then perform the remixed work and upload the videos on media platforms like YouTube enhance his students understanding of the text (Smith, 2010). YouTube, as described by Michael Hoechsmann and Stuart R. Poyntz, is one of many “content delivery platforms […] [that] can be used to extend the reach of youth communication” (2012, p. 160), which encourages students to feel as though their voices are being heard and matter in shaping the curriculum. Using the example of his student, Terry’s, rap, Smith highlights, “adapting the play into a modern rap helped Terry understand the Bard's old English prose. ‘I'd never had a chance to interpret one of Shakespeare's stories in a contemporary way before,’ he says. ‘Shakespeare's stories are timeless’” (Smith, 2010). A discussion about using technology and the Internet safely, as well as explaining the difference between public and private postings, will have to take place, of course, but we need to understand that the youth is already using YouTube and social networks independently, so why should we deny the merging of education and media in the classroom?
Allowing our students the opportunity to rewrite Shakespeare’s timeless lines gives them the chance to manipulate the text and engage in active communication with Shakespeare’s themes and characters. In discussing the importance and the integration of the student’s voice in the classroom environment, Michael Fielding asks, “Do we require a formal language which earns students the right to dialogue or do we accept a more diverse discourse that betrays different standpoints and preoccupations to our own?” (2001, p. 102). Traditional Idealist education places emphasis on the requirement of the teacher as a guide; however, with the advent of new media platforms in the twenty-first century, we, as teachers, ought to consider what we can learn from our students who are engaging with media and new technologies on a daily basis. With Smith’s lesson specifically, Shakespeare is no longer the sole, omnipotent, voice of his texts; rather, Smith is breaking down the barrier between formal and informal languages in order to get to the important aspect of the text, which is the content.
As Fielding discusses the divide in the classroom environment between who is allowed to speak and who is listening, I believe that Smith’s lesson in reshaping Shakespeare’s words and uploading his students’ videos on YouTube’s public platform reinterprets the student’s position in the classroom from the passive recipient to the active producer of content; thus, moving away from a banking concept of education, as critiqued by Paulo Freire (2012, p. 380). As Smith emphasizes that “[p]osting their short films online allows students to experience a level of relevance that only a public medium like YouTube can offer. Suddenly, homework assignments become works of art that anyone might download, watch, and maybe even enjoy,” (Smith, 2010), we see the significance and necessity of interactive technologies in the classroom, as they “provide increased opportunities for youth to develop the competencies to participate in contemporary culture […]” (Rogers, 2010, p. 133).
Ultimately, as students reinterpret Shakespeare’s tales, they are engaging in the same act of production and reproduction as Shakespeare did. Discussing Shakespeare’s respective DIY production, Smith explains, “Shakespeare was the 16th-century equivalent of a remix artist. Most of his plots were borrowed from other authors, and several of his plays were written on the fly in collaboration with others. He would have probably approved of today's participatory culture, in which students simultaneously create and consume art” (Smith, 2010). By anchoring the lesson in the concept of DIY production, specifically fanfiction that merges with filming, the student is introduced to the concept of “being in the world,” presented by Lankshear and Knobel (2010, p. 13). Shakespeare was his century’s version of Bruns’ notion of the “produser [as an] ‘active’ and ‘productive’ user […] of content created, developed, modified, and shared by a community. That is, produsers use rather than consume […]” (Knobel & Lankshear, 2010, p. 10). Just like Shakespeare, students are able to take a story with an original plot and words, and adapt the story through DIY techniques to fit a contemporary and relevant issue for each student. Not only are Smith’s students working with the fanfiction genre of DIY production to cement their understanding of the texts, in uploading their videos to YouTube, they are part of a global communication platform, in which other students can engage in critical media literacy in response to the videos of fellow learners.
Here is the link to the original article:
http://www.edutopia.org/teaching-shakespeare-digital-media
Bibliography
Fielding, M. (2001). Beyond the rhetoric of student voice: New departures or new constraints in the transformation of 21st century schooling? Paper presented at the Forum for promoting 3-19 comprehensive education.
Freire, P. (2012). Pedagogy of the oppressed (selection). In S.M. Cahn (Ed.), Classic and contemporary readings in the philosophy of education (2nd ed.) (pp. 379-386). Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press.
Hoechsmann, M., & Poyntz, S. R. (2012). Media literacy 2.0: Contemporary media practices. In Media literacies a critical introduction (pp. 151-190). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. [e-book available through McGill library].
Knobel, M., & Lankshear, C. (2010). Chapter 1. In Knobel, M., & Lankshear, C. (Eds.)., DIY Media: Creating, sharing and learning with new technologies. New York, NY: Peter Lang http://everydayliteracies.net/files/DIY_Media_ms.pdf.
Rogers, T. (2010). Theorizing Media Productions as Complex Literacy Performances Among Youth In and Out of Schools. In D. Pullen & D. Cole (Eds.), Multiliteracies and Technology Enhanced Education: Social Practice and the Global Classroom (pp. 133-146). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
Smith, Russell Scott. (2010, January 19). Teachers Shake Up Shakespeare with Digital Media: Rap and film bring the Bard’s characters to life for high school students [Web log post]. Retrieved August 7, 2014, from http://www.edutopia.org/teaching-shakespeare-digital-media.
A Few Stellar Student Examples...
“Some of these YouTube English-project videos have received as many as 20,000 hits, in part because teachers at other high schools use them to engage their students. ‘That's the magic of Internet culture,’ says Christy Desmet, a professor of English at the University of Georgia. ‘Kids put their work out into the world, and other people see it and care about it. It's very empowering’” (Smith, 2010).