How To Teach Your Children Shakespeare (2013) - Plot & Excerpts
Ultimately I think this is probably a little bit more intense than I want to be about teaching my son to memorize Shakespeare, but it has great tips on how to work on memorization that I can see us using for important texts – Shakespeare, yes, but also poems and speeches and the Bible. I feel like I have an adequate knowledge of Shakespeare, but there are some big plays that I have never read, and Ludwig explains the plots and the importance of some famous speeches with great enthusiasm and passion. I learned a lot from the book and am glad I read it. It would make a great textbook for a high school or college class on Shakespeare as it puts so many of the plays and lines into context. I could also see it being a big hit in homeschool groups. The resource list at the back is excellent. I have read plenty of times the idea that my children should memorize this or that poem or passage with vocabulary and structure too complex for my children to understand, and I always wonder what the point is in having my children memorize a series of meaningless syllables.Part of what makes this book great is how the author breaks down, explains and rewords the passages, explaining not only what the words mean, but what has been going on up to the point of the passage. Then you can turn around and explain it to your children. These explanations are not only useful, they are enjoyable. And now your child can memorize a series of syllables that is beautiful, meaningful, interesting, entertaining and important.Another thing this book has that makes Shakespeare more fun and accessible is the author's infectious love of Shakespeare's work. He isn't a stodgy old professor saying, “You should like this because I said so, as did my professor, and my professor's professor and so on! Look at how perfectly these lines scan! You will like it or you will get an F!”He is able to show what makes Shakespeare great in terms that are not dry and stuffy. This makes the book a good learning resource for the parent, too.There are plays by Shakespeare that I adore and others that I kind of toss aside like, “Yeah, I see how it took skill to write that, but I'm not entertained. Whatever.” Even if he can't quite make me fall in love with the plays in the latter set, he helps me understand why other people like those particular plays so much, appreciate them more, and consider giving them another try. He makes it easy for me to see the play from a different perspective and take a closer look at at least a few passages.But this book isn't just about memorizing a few passages, or even about memorizing and understanding them. Ludwig includes tidbits and sometimes whole chapters explaining some of the most-loved characters, historical and biographical information, the “all the world's a stage” metaphor that comes up repeatedly in Shakespeare's plays, and explanations of drama in general. He doesn't, however, give a method for teaching anything beyond recitation. He explains things and sometimes suggests you make sure your children understand them, but leaves it up to you to figure out how.
What do You think about How To Teach Your Children Shakespeare (2013)?
Something to set aside and reread when the kids are older.
—Kendrashob
