AP Language teacher and English Department Chair Haleemeh Mohammed has taught Hamlet for 7 years and Macbeth for 10 years. “I can’t wait for it every year!” she said. She compares it to rewatching a movie, explaining that she loves to see everything she didn’t notice previously.
English I and English II teacher Elizabeth Ayala said, “I am actually one of the teachers that don’t enjoy reading or teaching Shakespeare.” Ayala said that for this year the English I team decided to replace the Shakespeare unit with speeches in order to prioritize different standards.
Mohammed said this was a decision made to align with both the AP curriculum and to cater to the understanding of students. She said that older students often have a “greater ability to appreciate and foster his work.”
Junior Saylor Schwartz said that when talking to peers, she did not find anyone who particularly enjoyed learning about Shakespeare. “I think a lot of people were kind of struggling like I was, or just not very interested in the topic,” Schwartz said.
Ayala said students often “glaze over the actual language and then focus on No Fear Shakespeare and any other tools like SparkNotes or CliffsNotes to help them understand what they just read.”
Mohammed said, “Comprehension and language is a barrier, because language changes from generation to generation, but the reward of studying Shakespeare is increased vocab, sophisticated style, and appreciation for how his writing has influenced so many aspects of our lives.”
Schwartz said she found the language hard to comprehend. “I feel like I was missing out on the main concepts just with the word choices he used,” she said.
Junior Sabrina Kaloudis said she does not understand the relevance in being taught Shakespeare. “ There have been so many works since then that have, in my opinion, been just as good, if not better, so I don’t really know why we’re so focused on Shakespeare,” said Kaloudis.
Mohammed said that her goal when teaching Shakespeare is for students to understand why he is a big deal. “He influenced so many aspects of English literature,” Mohammed said. “His writing is an art with the way he connects words. Layers upon layers of sophistication that is hard to find in contemporary literature.”
In contrast, Ayala said, “I think a lot of the skills that go with Shakespeare can be taught using more culturally relevant text.”
Schwartz said that she also believes there are better ways to learn about English than Shakespeare. She said it would be helpful to “maintain current events and read about things that are happening right now.”
Despite the prevalence of Shakespeare in English classes, Ayala said, “I think there’s a lot of cultural currency when learning about Shakespeare, because there’s a lot of allusions to a lot of his works throughout movies, TVs, and other books. So I think that because schools keep teaching it, it continues to be important.”
Mohammed said that many modern works are inspired by Shakespeare, and viewers are often unaware of this. She lists the book “Twilight New Moon” as inspired by “Romeo and Juliet”, the song “Demons” by Imagine Dragons inspired by “Macbeth”, and the movie ”Lion King” inspired by “Hamlet”. “You don’t appreciate it until you study it,” she said.
Ayala said the Shakespeare unit included a performance that was often intimidating to many students.
Kaloudis performed Macbeth in her AP Language class this year. “It helped me with my performance skills, because I do get a little nervous in front of my classmates, but it ended up being a lot of fun getting to make our own costumes, and, like, getting creative with it,” Kaloudis said.
“Shakespeare’s works are meant to be seen, watched, and heard,” said Mohammed.
Kaloudis said she enjoyed performing Macbeth better than reading it. “I actually found that really fun, and I feel like it really developed my understanding of Macbeth.”
She said she enjoyed seeing her classmates’ different interpretations and performances of Shakespeare. “Shakespeare’s a lot of, like, interpreting, because you don’t really know exactly what’s going on all the time,” said Kaloudis.
Overall Schwartz said, “In history his works have been seen as very important pieces of literature, and it has maintained its importance for so long, but I feel like with the times changing, maybe we should adapt to that and maybe not hold on to the same pieces of work that we’ve used for 100s of years now.”
