Is Shakespeare not taught in DCPS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s the value of Shakespeare in the curriculum? Is it for your nostalgic reasons? Just because it’s always been done, does that mean it’s always been right? Do you want to still teach Columbus as a savior and hero?

What an astoundingly ignorant comment (from someone who has probably never read Shakespeare, I’m guessing). Maya Angelou said that “Shakespeare must’ve been a black girl” because his words spoke to her soul. Great literature speaks to us all.

From the Atlantic:

Angelou explained how as a young girl who once read (with no claim, necessarily, to understanding) every book in the tiny library in Stamps, Arkansas, she thought that the author of Sonnet 29 must have been a black girl because its solemn words expressed so fiercely what she—an outcast, the victim of racism, destitution, and childhood sexual abuse, crying out alone before a deaf heaven—felt inside:

When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least.
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

And when Angelou recited them to us, these words sounded indeed like they had sprung forth from her soul.

It also speaks to the ability of Shakepeare to capture teen experiences like no other.

lol. Not my teen experience.. not at all.

Why should Caesar just get to stomp around like a giant while the rest of us try not to get smushed under his big feet? Brutus is just as cute as Caesar, right? Brutus is just as smart as Caesar, people totally like Brutus just as much as they like Caesar, and when did it become okay for one person to be the boss of everybody because that's not what Rome is about! We should totally just STAB CAESAR!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s the value of Shakespeare in the curriculum? Is it for your nostalgic reasons? Just because it’s always been done, does that mean it’s always been right? Do you want to still teach Columbus as a savior and hero?

What an astoundingly ignorant comment (from someone who has probably never read Shakespeare, I’m guessing). Maya Angelou said that “Shakespeare must’ve been a black girl” because his words spoke to her soul. Great literature speaks to us all.

From the Atlantic:

Angelou explained how as a young girl who once read (with no claim, necessarily, to understanding) every book in the tiny library in Stamps, Arkansas, she thought that the author of Sonnet 29 must have been a black girl because its solemn words expressed so fiercely what she—an outcast, the victim of racism, destitution, and childhood sexual abuse, crying out alone before a deaf heaven—felt inside:

When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least.
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

And when Angelou recited them to us, these words sounded indeed like they had sprung forth from her soul.

It also speaks to the ability of Shakepeare to capture teen experiences like no other.

lol. Not my teen experience.. not at all.

Why should Caesar just get to stomp around like a giant while the rest of us try not to get smushed under his big feet? Brutus is just as cute as Caesar, right? Brutus is just as smart as Caesar, people totally like Brutus just as much as they like Caesar, and when did it become okay for one person to be the boss of everybody because that's not what Rome is about! We should totally just STAB CAESAR!

Caesar was a colonizer of Gaul!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of the subsequent literature you mention (Native American, women in lit, African, etc.) is only possible to understand and comprehend in Anglo society, because of Shakespeare. His writing and use of the language is peerless. I promise that of all of the "womens lit" classes you took, you did not encounter an author as important to the foundation of culture and society as Shakespeare.

And it doesn't matter if there are (not "their are") "tons" of more interesting books for youth than Shakespeare. School is not a candy factory, dumbed down to the level of teaching what is of interest to teenagers. Sixteen year olds don't know what they need to know. It is up to educated adults to present to students the information that they need to read and digest in order to become properly educated, literate, functioning members of society, and to advance their way in academia. If you don't understand that, your education failed you.

It’s only possible because England literally colonized Africans and indigenous people. Had y’all stayed in your own country this wouldn’t be a conversation. Stop giving yourself credit you don’t deserve colonizer.

+1

I'm really concerned for people who call all white people colonizers. My mother was born in a displaced person's camp in Germany after she lost almost her entire family in the Holocaust. Curious where else she was supposed to go and how her immigrating to this country makes her a colonizer?

[Anonymous]

The dumb woke argument is this:

Your individual circumstances don't matter. Since you are benfitting from the white supremacy system instituted by the white colonizers centuries ago, you are guilty of being a terrible human being. The only thing that matters how oppressed your ancestors are. The Holocaust is not that relevant because jews are represented in the upper crust of society. Only the racial oppression maters, as proven by the disproportional racial representation of POC.

The solution is to tear down the white supremacy system which is maintained by the normalization of white culture, and that includes studying Shakespeare since he is the foundation of the white colonizing culture. So replace Shakespeare with african, middle eastern and south american authors.

[Anonymous]

One of the most interesting things about English is how weird it is. It uses some of the most simple grammar, but has among the largest vocabularies. (If anyone has a interest, go read Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson, which was way more entertaining than other lingusitic books).

This means that it gives poets and authors great tools to work with - simple frameworks on which they can twist and turn the language to make it express complex ideas a hundred ways. Shakespear did this like no other, and in doing so, he added more and more to our vocabulary. Studying his work is to study why and how English is extrodinary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One of the most interesting things about English is how weird it is. It uses some of the most simple grammar, but has among the largest vocabularies. (If anyone has a interest, go read Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson, which was way more entertaining than other lingusitic books).

This means that it gives poets and authors great tools to work with - simple frameworks on which they can twist and turn the language to make it express complex ideas a hundred ways. Shakespear did this like no other, and in doing so, he added more and more to our vocabulary. Studying his work is to study why and how English is extrodinary.

What other languages do you intimately speak/read?

[Anonymous]

The troll poster that wants to cancel Shakespeare is just an inarticulate version of a much more pernicious current. The ‘sophisticated’ scholars where these ideas originate are in the humanities departments at prestigious universities.

This is the current analysis on Shakespeare that draws that inspiration and there are countless ‘works’ in this vein:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41280-020-00169-6

In a nutshell, Shakespeare is harmful to black kids because whiteness.

The reason ‘middle aged’ (I know, the horror!) people still appreciate Shakespeare with all the good reasons presented in this thread is that they weren’t exposed to the critical studies ideas that dominate universities today. The woke cancel culture mob representatives are just parroting the line presented to them in college in the past 5-10 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of the most interesting things about English is how weird it is. It uses some of the most simple grammar, but has among the largest vocabularies. (If anyone has a interest, go read Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson, which was way more entertaining than other lingusitic books).

This means that it gives poets and authors great tools to work with - simple frameworks on which they can twist and turn the language to make it express complex ideas a hundred ways. Shakespear did this like no other, and in doing so, he added more and more to our vocabulary. Studying his work is to study why and how English is extrodinary.

What other languages do you intimately speak/read?

Not the previous poster but I agree with her view in the English grammar and vocabulary. I’m bilingual speaking a Romance language.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ah, I checked back to see if the salty old white women would try to disparage my intellect because they didn’t like my answer. Nice you all met my expectations.

But I’m a little dissatisfied, I didn’t get the ‘word salad’ comment.

And just an FYI I wasn’t making a point for Shakespeare being removed, more like just laughing at this thread, that is just so white mom. What will you do if Karen and Brad don’t learn about Shakespeare in school?!

I think because DCPS can be or is trying to really be more black and a little more non-white hispanic focused some of you forget the real world is not. I’m sure their university English class will talk about Shakespeare. Or hey, you can have them read it for a leisure activity.

Freshman psych rears it’s ugly head again.

You win the internet!

It’s like Hamlet said, To thine own self be true

Is this a “Clueless” reference or did you really not know Polonius said this to Laertes? I can’t tell these days on DCUM. If it’s a “Clueless” reference, brilliant.

Let's put it this way - this thread is a bigger disaster than Malibu

[Anonymous]

I still want to know more about the poster who took AP English "through high school" (and college!) and studied two semesters of "Old English."

Details, please!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I still want to know more about the poster who took AP English "through high school" (and college!) and studied two semesters of "Old English."

Details, please!

Maybe she took AP English, composition one year and literature one year, hence through high school and repeated while in college, that’s not that rare.

Old English can be a semester of actual Old English (think Beowulf), and a semester of Middle English (think Chaucer).

Why are you nitpicking?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of the most interesting things about English is how weird it is. It uses some of the most simple grammar, but has among the largest vocabularies. (If anyone has a interest, go read Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson, which was way more entertaining than other lingusitic books).

This means that it gives poets and authors great tools to work with - simple frameworks on which they can twist and turn the language to make it express complex ideas a hundred ways. Shakespear did this like no other, and in doing so, he added more and more to our vocabulary. Studying his work is to study why and how English is extrodinary.

What other languages do you intimately speak/read?

These are well-established facts from linguists globally. English is known for its small grammar and large, flexibly vocabulary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I still want to know more about the poster who took AP English "through high school" (and college!) and studied two semesters of "Old English."

Details, please!

Maybe she took AP English, composition one year and literature one year, hence through high school and repeated while in college, that’s not that rare.

Old English can be a semester of actual Old English (think Beowulf), and a semester of Middle English (think Chaucer).

Why are you nitpicking?

DP here, but if she or he took all that, my guess is that they overdid it and never want to see a "thy" again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I still want to know more about the poster who took AP English "through high school" (and college!) and studied two semesters of "Old English."

Details, please!

Maybe she took AP English, composition one year and literature one year, hence through high school and repeated while in college, that’s not that rare.

Old English can be a semester of actual Old English (think Beowulf), and a semester of Middle English (think Chaucer).

Why are you nitpicking?

DP here, but if she or he took all that, my guess is that they overdid it and never want to see a "thy" again.

And? Why are you the judge of what people’s academic interests should be? So what if they never want to see a ‘thy’ again? People change career direction all the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of the most interesting things about English is how weird it is. It uses some of the most simple grammar, but has among the largest vocabularies. (If anyone has a interest, go read Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson, which was way more entertaining than other lingusitic books).

This means that it gives poets and authors great tools to work with - simple frameworks on which they can twist and turn the language to make it express complex ideas a hundred ways. Shakespear did this like no other, and in doing so, he added more and more to our vocabulary. Studying his work is to study why and how English is extrodinary.

What other languages do you intimately speak/read?

These are well-established facts from linguists globally. English is known for its small grammar and large, flexibly vocabulary.

+1