This notice comes from Michael LoMonico, Senior Consultant on National Education at the Folger Shakespeare Library:

I am excited to share some news from Folger Shakespeare Library. In addition to our four-week Teaching Shakespeare Institute, we are taking the show on the road and offering two different week-long Mini-Institutes this summer. We will be at Adairsville, Georgia and the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. Both of these will include lectures by scholars, performance classes, and curriculum sessions based on Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In addition to funding from Folger Shakespeare Library, these institutes were made possible by grants and support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Georgia Council of teachers of English, and the University of Nebraska.

Dates:

Georgia- June 9-13

Nebraska- June 23-27

If you have not attended a Folger Institute, now is your chance. Full details and application materials can be found at www.folger.edu . The entire application process can be completed electronically. The deadline for applications is May 1.

In the United States, ninth grade is often the year students are introduced to Shakespeare, and the play of choice is Romeo and Juliet. The unit is usually second only to the research paper in terms of difficulty; it’s just so hard to read the English Shakespeare crafted 400 years ago.

I tell my students that reading Shakespeare is like listening to a wonderful song on the radio as you are driving out of range of the station: you can tell it’s a great song, but the static makes it difficult to appreciate the music.

The Canadian Adaptations of Shakespeare Project has developed The Interactive Folio for Romeo and Juliet. This wonderful resource really helps break through the static. On the left is Shakespeare’s text, hyperlinked. Click on a link, and to the right you will see support — a paraphrase, an explanation, a picture, audio, or video. Students can read straight through where they feel confident. When they need help, click! It’s there.

While the interactive folio is currently the “star” in my book, don’t stop there. There are links to several projects that bring Shakespeare to 21st-century students of all ethnic backgrounds. Don’t miss the Learning Commons for ready-to-use activities.

Somewhere there is a student who thought she was going to hate Shakespeare. She’ll use this site and think, “Wow, this is cool. Shakespeare is cool!”

You have been accused of witchcraft. The accusation itself is considered proof; no one put on trial for witchcraft is ever found not guilty. You have two choices: proclaim your innocence loudly and die, or confess your guilt, accuse an “accomplice,” spend some time in jail, and live.

Which choice would you make?

This tough call lies at the heart of Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, a play that explores Salem, McCarthyism, and any other situation in which those in power assume they can’t be wrong and accuse others of the crime of disagreeing with them.

It is easy for our students, insulated by a distance of 400 years, to proclaim that making a witchcraft a crime is “stupid” and that certainly THEY would never give in to the hysteria. Prior to reading the play (or seeing the excellent movie that Miller himself worked on), students need to understand the complexity of the situation. A good pre-reading activity is available from National Geographic. Entitled “Salem Witchcraft Hysteria“, the site invites visitors to assume the role of someone who lived in Salem at the time. It guides them through the maze of choices and consequences.

This kind of interactive activity helps students realize that sometimes there is no good choice; sometimes we can only make the best of a bad situation and live with the aftermath. This is a difficult lesson for many adolescents — for many adults, as well — one that teaches respect for those who take the moral high ground and compassion for those who find that they can’t.

What happens when a guy with a little extra time on his hands reconsiders one of the greatest plays ever written? Stick Figure Hamlet, currently under construction and showing a great deal of promise!

	Claudius	Hamlet	Gertrude

Author/illustrator Dan Carroll says he updates the site about 3 times a week and expects to add up to another 150 pages or so, adding, “Somewhere along the line, I realized why so many directors do an abridged version.”

I admire this site on several levels. First, I think we would all have to agree that Carroll is a master of the Stick Figure school of art, a school in which I now consider myself a mere dilettante.

This site would also be a great resource for kids with learning disabilities who might otherwise struggle with Hamlet. The graphics make the dialog easier to understand, helping students see cause-and-effect relationships and the complexities of characters.

But this is also a great site for anyone who appreciates literature. We can sense Carroll’s enthusiasm in the scope of the project and the quality of his work. This is not someone who experienced Hamlet by filling out worksheets or watching a video. Something made the play come to life for Dan Carroll, and he is using his talent to pass it along.

How can teachers introduce students to literature in a way that might cause this kind of response? If we rely on our own passion, we’re in trouble when we teach a piece of literature we aren’t enthusiastic about. Better question: how can we kindle that passion in our students?

Ideas?

I just spent an hour browsing Shakespeare in American Life, a Web companion to the radio documentary on National Public Radio. This outstanding site should be sipped and savored.

Movie buffs, politicians, businesspeople, actors, and teachers—in short, all of us—will find something interesting here. Audio and video files, portraits, posters, advertisements, and a timeline document the impact of Shakespeare in America. (Trivia: first recorded performance of Shakespeare in the New World, 1730, Romeo and Juliet.)

The layout is simple, and the site is rich. Click on one link, and you will find both your target and two related links that you didn’t see before. All of them invite attention.

The education section generously offers lesson ideas for many grade levels. My personal favorite is “Occupation Romeo”. (Romeo as WWF wrestler? You be the judge!)

To say that the Bard’s work has endured because he speaks to timeless issues and creates universal characters has become clichéd, and I apologize for even mentioning it. This site lets that understanding run like white noise as it shows Shakespeare in advertising, in asylums, in music, at school, and at war until it would seem that in fact “all the world’s a stage.”

The site is a project of the Folger Shakespeare Library and is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund; and The Mosaic Foundation of Rita & Peter Heydon.