This looks pretty neat – Shakespeare at the elementary school level. I love the opening picture, just the idea of kids that young drawing Shakespeare is very cool to me (much like my 14month old daughter playing with one of my Buddha statues like a toy and learning how to say “Buddha” :)). Makes it real.
They have a timeline of Shakespeare’s life, and summaries of a number of plays. It’s interesting to see Hamlet explained in about 5 or 6 sentences. (Poor Laertes doesn’t even get a credit, he’s just known as “Ophelia’s brother” :)) Even then, you could take exception to some of the assumptions — “Ophelia goes crazy because Hamlet says he doesn’t love her and she drowns herself.” There’s at least two debatable ideas in that sentence.
Hey, whatever. If it’s working and giving kids an appreciation of the Shakespearean characters and stories, I’m all for it. I hope that it inspires them to learn more about each play and just how deep everything really is, and not just to quote back what they memorized.
Ophelia’s a person, after all. Maybe there were a few other factors involved then just “Oh no he doesn’t love me.” And if she was crazy, could she really drown herself?
See, get me started and I can’t shut up…
Tag: Shakespeare
Love this idea! My niece (7) saw me with my Norton propped up on my knees, so I started talking to her about Shakespeare and Romeo and Juliet. Well, next thing you know she’s telling her Mom, “Shakespeare is the greatest writer of all time!” (Does that count as indoctrination?)