Course Description
Focuses on teaching and learning from Shakespeare at all educational levels. Aimed towards current and potential Language Education and English students interested in a future career in teaching or interested in why and how Shakespeare has become such an educational icon for the last three centuries.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students:
Graduate students will immerse themselves in the literature and
practice of service-learning as well as in the study of
Shakespeare and pedagogy at a high level. Graduate students
will be held to a higher standard than undergraduate students
in the class, completing fuller and more detailed "low-stakes"
writing assignments and, in addition, a substantial final
project and a teaching portfolio showcasing their commitment to
service-learning. They will construct a discipline-specific
final project that is appropriate to their program of study,
such as a publishable paper on Shakespeare studies, including a
full bibliography and a meta-critical review, for literature
students; a syllabus and curriculum for Language Education
students; or a teaching edition of particular plays for Theatre
Arts practitioners.
Athena Title
Shakespeare in the Classroom
Non-Traditional Format
Course includes a service-learning project during the semester that either employs skills or knowledge learned in the course or teaches new skills or knowledge related to course objectives. The course uses service-learning as the primary pedagogical tool for teaching course objectives. Students will work on a comprehensive project(s) and may be required to spend considerable time outside the classroom. Students will be engaged in the service-learning component for approximately 75- 100% of overall instructional time.
Undergraduate Prerequisite
Permission of department
Graduate Prerequisite
Permission of department
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
1) Students will become familiar with the methods used in schools to teach Shakespeare 2) Students will become intimate with the plays most frequently taught in schools 3) Students will reflect upon the value of service-learning and upon the importance of Language Arts in general and Shakespeare in particular 4) Students will learn to write clearly, reflectively, and precisely about service-learning and Shakespeare
Topical Outline
The instructor will come up with the topical outline in collaboration with local schoolteachers and thus it will vary from year to year. A sample set of readings might include _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, _Macbeth_, and _Romeo and Juliet_ along with the Folger Shakespeare Library's _Shakespeare Set Free_ tools; assignments for such a course would include developing a concordance, a filmography, a set of performance scenes, and a guide to adaptations, for use in the classroom. Another syllabus might require students to become familiar with the Georgia classroom performance standards for the relevant grades and to be able to develop rubrics for particular plays and to identify content in the plays that might be used for the performance standards, including the standards for integrated curricula in the Junior International Baccalaureate and International Baccalaureate diplomas currently being explored in the ACC School District.