To want DD to actually read literature in literature lessons?

[buttonmoon78]

DD1 is in year 9. In English they are just starting Macbeth. Last Thursday she missed a lesson as she had a hospital appointment and this morning informed me that she'd missed some of the dvd they'd been watching. When I said it didn't matter as they'd be surely reading it she said no, they were just watching the dvd. I was a little bit .

I did Macbeth in year 7 - and we read it all. And this was in 1989/90 so not millenia ago.

What makes it worse is that her teacher said that they wouldn't read it because they wouldn't understand it. I mean, what? How to put a student off Shakespeare in one easy step!

AIBU or is this why the Daily Fail goes on about slipping standards in education?

I also question the assumption that childfen of lower ability won't be able to tackle the classics.
Literature always operates on many levels. And people of differing intellect or empathatic skills will take out of it what they can.

Yesterday I was writing a scene where the character's boyfriend's eyes light up when he is speaking to his ex, somehting that the character feels as 'a cut deep as bone.'
Now these few words reflect the setting (an poilice incident room displaying pictures of a victim). They also forshadow the next scene where a victim is found with words carved in her skin. It is also a play on words vis a vis the victim's name.

But that's all for me! I don't mind if the reader only takes from those words that the character is pretty upset!

Quatto you may be right about the Middle English comment. However if you are pointing out others' ignorance/mistake,s I'm sure you won't mind me pointing out something you posted.

I rolled my eyes at your comments at 16.47 where you refer to children as "the thick ones" and the "dim ones" nice

Not to mention that r & j is a gift for teenagers - love, sex, death, gangs, parents, fights. They should love this stuff.

Shakespeare himself had small Latin and less Greek - I agree with Wordfactory

Oh I do apologise for calling dim people dim. What would be acceptable in your lexicon? Not academically inclined, perhaps?

Well I woundn't want to label them as anything derogatory.

My DDs both have freinds who are less "academically inclined".

They may not be able to quote Shakespeare but they have many other fantasic skills and non academic achievements which would certainly mean dim and thick would not apply to them.

Are there sets for English Literature in state schools

Is it possible that the thick less academically inclined could be relegated to lower sets and the higher sets could then be allowed to read Shakespeare?

I thought I was being very restrained to ignore the 'Middle English' comment! Should have known someone else would not be so....

I wasn't going to but when someone else did, I exploded again :(

This is all nonsense, utter nonsense. What a disservice to the nation's children.

Nothing new. I feel like I had a shit education and put everything I do actually know down to reading and my parents. I'm 31 and went to a supposedly good school.

I am very excited by the Macbeth they were talking about on breakfast television either this morning or yesterday so it obviously hasn't completely knocked the love of Shakespeare completely out of me.

"Oh I do apologise for calling dim people dim. What would be acceptable in your lexicon? Not academically inclined, perhaps?"

less privileged?

One of my A level English class mates at my lesser private school threw a strop because she couldn't have an English translation for her Milton set text like the one she had for Chaucer.

She wasn't less privileged: she was thick.

less genetically blessed?

I loved less privileged, Bonsoir, but I'm not sure about less genetically blessed

It's possible to be the bright child of dim parents - in which case being less genetically blessed might be a bonus.

Bit fick suits me fine

My son is dyslexic, in a lowish set (the one for D/C borderline kids), he has studied Shakespeare, Beowulf, and for GCSE the short classics (Of Mice and Men). I think bottom sets can study shakespeare, given my kids study MacBeth in year 5 when doing the Tudors (and according to my son every year there after, although DD did Romeo and Juliet last year I think).

I have taught Shakespeare to bottom sets made up entirely of kids with SEN (in a big school with 6 sets per year) in Year 9 and would have done in Year 7 had the school had Year 7 or 8 in it! Recently I taught Henry IV Part I to a Year 9 bottom set, plus a whistle stop tour through Richard II and Henry IV Part II for context. We read the whole play. We also watched bits, acted bits (lots), wrote essays, wrote creative pieces inspired by it and learned a lot of historical context. They can explain what iambic pentameter is and why it's 'so cool', how Chaucer was related to the royal court, why Shakespeare might have wanted to paint certain kings in a good or less good light and hundreds of other things that they would not have got just from watching the film. Yes, the language seems hard at first but once they're hooked, they're hooked. In my opinion if you're an English teacher and you're not teaching Shakespeare properly then you shouldn't be an English teacher. You find a way to make it count for the kids in your class, whether there are 10 or 30 of them and whether they're bottom set, mixed ability or top set.

Thank you for that summary Kaloobear. It provides an example for the posters who are a bit thick niave in their knowledge of state education.

It's iambic pentame ter

I agree with both QLB and Sherlocked. Many films/DVDs are excellent and it's daft to discount them.

I did Romeo and Juliet at 14. Bored. Probably my teacher wasn't the greatest. Luckily I didn't have to do a formal exam.

When I saw the Baz Luhrmann interpretation years later I had a much better understanding, which isn't to say no one should read the play.

Same as the Brad Pitt version of Troy, which is clunky, but gives a reasonable understanding of the Homerian Achilles legend, and the Sam Worthington version of Clash of the Titans which is pretty good about the myth of Perseus.

They're not a replacement for studying the text but they are a very good supplement.