Poll: Did you read Shakespeare in High School?

As it is the Ides of March my friend was writing about Shakespeare. He said it was a shame that they didn't read Shakespeare in school any more. Is that true? Did you read Shakespeare in High School?

Of course - every year from 1985-1989 - one per year.

Yes, a bunch. Though I've been out of school for almost 12 years. :)

Freshman yr: Romeo and Juliet

Sophmore yr: Julius Ceaser

Junior yr: Macbeth

Senior yr: Hamlet and Othello

I wish they had let us study some of his comedies as well.� Midsummer Night's Dream�is one of the funniest plays i've ever seen, and i've heard great things about As You Like It.

That's pretty much what we read. I think that has been the standard for ages. We did read Midsummers... and Twelth Night.

I'm in school.. and we're reading Shakespeare right now, actually. I have a project on Romeo and Juliet due next week. :)

i wonder for how much longer you will still be able to read shakespeare in HS.� right now it is possible for someone to graduate with an english degree from many colleges and NEVER take a shakespeare course.� the english majors�are crammed full of "theory" but have not learned much of the great literature.� english departments don't seem to teach much english lit any more.� a lot are like very bad sociology departments.

True. I mean, we read it, but we spent more or less 2 weeks on it, just reading it straight through. Not really learning much about it. To me, that's kind of defeating the purpose, and more reading just so they can say we read it.

Your friend is drunk. :) At my high school we read Midsummer and R&J freshman year, Much Ado and Macbeth sophomore year. I was a freshman in 97-98. If that's not recent enough, even at the high school where I now teach - where many students read on about a 6th-grade level - English classes cover Shakespeare. The seniors are working on Othello right now.

Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet. And I graduated in 1985.

Although Romeo and Juliet was the first Shakespeare play I ever read (it was in 8th grade, and I remember seeing the Zeffereli (sp?) movie and everyone giggling in the scene where Romeo and Juliet are lying in bed and you can see his butt) , it wasn't until my senior year when my English teacher took the class to see Twelfth Night performed live that I really learned to appreciate the Bard. I thought it was so funny, and I fell in love with Viola, one of the most adorable Shakespearean heroines ever.

I saw the Zefferelli Romeo and Juliet in a theatre. The funny thing is that before I saw it, I saw that it won or maybe was just nominated for the best costume Oscar. I had heard about the film and my honest response was, "But I thought they didn't wear clothes?"

in elementary school we read shakespeare comics!
similar to this only i dunno if that's the exact guy or not....

I don't think you could have a good high school education and not read Shakesspeare.

King Lear, Romeo & Juliet, Midsummer Night's Dream, and Julius Caesar in high school.

In college I had a Shakespeare class. 8 plays (comedies) in 10 weeks: Measure for Measure, Much Ado About Nothing, Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, The Tempest, Twelfth Night, Winter's Tale, and Comedy of Errors. Trust me after all of that by the final exam you can't remember which characters or plot lines go with which play. So when the essay questions have the constraint "Include examples from at least 3 plays" -- you're hosed :-)

I know I've also read Merchant of Venice and Othello but I can't remember when (h.s. or college). I avoided all of the histories. :-)

i forgot to list Merchant in the plays we read.

Aww, man. The Henry IVs are some of my favorite Shakespeare plays! You're missing out. :)

.. Does anyone remember the episode of Moonlighting ("Atomic Shakespeare") that was based on Taming of the Shrew? Or is that showing my age? heh. I have it on my Tivo.

Soap did something similar with Danny/Elaine.

there was also a car 54, where are you? about the taming of the shrew. why do i know this? i have no idea.

but then, shakespeare-inspired works are a completely different topic that could probably take up a whole forum of their own.

do you think somewhere out there there is Car 54, Where Are You and Soap slashfic? or worse yet, crossover fic?

OMG BURT/MULDOON/BOB OT3.

How do you know this and not me. I actually watched Car 54 Where Are You when it was a first run show. I loved it.

I absolutely love that episode. It's forever my favorite Moonlighting episode.� "WE HATE IAMBIC PENTAMETER!"� "Do bears beareth? Do bees bee-eth?" (It's been, like, a decade since I've seen it so I'm probably misquoting. :) )

Great episode

Class of '95 = yes. Well, at least if by "did you read", you meant "were you assigned". ;-)

Even though I went to high school in French. We still put on Romeo and Juliet in English class.

Plus, we read loads of Moli�re, so I figure that counts. Cause I'm sick that way :)

I love Moliere. I never read him but I have seen Tartuffe and The Misanthrope.

Even though I went to high school in French. We still put on Romeo and Juliet in English class.

Same here (apart from the fact that I went to hs in German;)

What would be really funny is if went to H.S. in German and put on Romeo and Juliet in French.

Well, nothing's like reading Macbeth in the original Klingon.

I asked my cousin if they were going to be reading Shakespeare in school and she said that her class has read R&J, Much Ado About Nothing, and Hamlet. Then she told me they just had to read them so they could watch the movies.

sigh

And then she told me about the new girl dressing as guy teen movie that is based on Twelfh Night. I'm out of touch. But I do remember 10 Things I Hate About You...and cringe.

i'm currently doing my fifth (optional) year of high school. i have been on two fieldtrips to Shakespeare productions - Macbeth and As You Like It. and we've also read Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, and Twelfth Night. and if we read something in the ninth grade then i just can't recall what it was. so i think there's still a good amount of Shakespeare in my school. As You Like It was wonderful, and Hamlet was great in that it led me to Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead and the wonderful world of Tom Stoppard.

Woo Hoo Tom Stoppard! I love R&G are dead. I've seen it a few times. I've read it. I've seen the film, I've played the question game, I've told people that you "Can't not be, on a boat."

Oh man, yeah.... R&G are dead is AWESOME.

:D

I remember we went on a field trip and saw Hamlet, with John-boy Walton and his giant mole as Hamlet.

what is a "fifth optional year of high school" and why in the name of #(*$#&( would you want to take one?

it's a year where a student returns for additional credits. why? maybe that student needs them for post-secondary program requirements. for me, though, it's because i enjoy this school.

wait... you used "enjoy" and "school" in the same sentence... I'm lost.

;D

Some of you might be intererested in this. Budgiedome Alumnus Groovelily is in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

GrooveLily is woven into the fabric of
this piece--a collaborative venture between musicians, aerialists,
dancers, actors and singers

That sounds like it is too much fun. I'm going.

March 21-April 9 - Princeton, NJ ("A Midsummer Night's Dream" at McCarter)
April 19-May 21 - Millburn, NJ ("A Midsummer Night's Dream" at Paper Mill)

Hang on. That's in my town! Wowserz. I wonder if I can afford it.

I'm a senior in high school right now, and I've read some Shakespeare every year (or at least it was assigned).

So far, we've done:

9th
- Romeo and Juliet
10th
- Julius Caesar
11th
- Much Ado About Nothing
- Twelvth Night
12th
- Macbeth
- Hamlet

Shakespeare is very much alive.

What if you graduated during 2000? Would that count as after the start of the 2000 year, or does after 2000 refer to after the end of 2000?

if you graduated during 2000, then you didn't graduate after 2000, so you would be in the "graduated after 1995" group

Until this post I had no idea this topic had a poll. Wow.

the poll was the raison d'etre for the forum.

Yes, I gathered that now. But I only ever view forums through the "recent posts" box, and when you click those links you don't see polls.

I have that same problem, and realized it at the same time you did.� I whine about it from time to time to Josh but nothing happens so I suspect either it's hard to change, or we're just an unappreciated minority. :)

This was the results of my friend's informal survey:

So I mentioned Shakespeare yesterday. It turns out that after a head count of kids I know, my nieces, nephew and 4 adolescent kids of friends of minem none of them have had to read Shakespeare or Dickens in jr. high or high school. I also talked to an English teacher friend of mine who said he had to struggle just to get the resources to stage a production at his school. what is going on here? I bet if there were a videogame of MacBeth people would play it.

What can explain the difference between the people he knows and us?

Honors classes? I dunno. They're the only ones I had, so I don't know what was done in the other classes.

I don't know his family but I know he is really bright, seems like the same demographic. Maybe it is geographic. He's from St. Louis.

If it's geographic I can't imagine how the region I teach in now is one of the regions that WOULD make kids read Shakespeare.

I dunno, the whole thing is a huge mystery to me.

Well Dickens is another story. The only Dickens I was ever assigned to read was "Great Expectations"-- once in high school and TWICE in college!!

I hate Dickens.

You really just want to see how far you can go and still have my like you. You are testing the boundaries.

Yes I still like you.,

It just goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on...

and on and on and on and ON AND ON AND ON

One more "ON" and you would have crossed the line!

9th Grade:
Romeo and Juliet
Merchant of Venice

11th Grade:
Taming of the Shrew

12th Grade:
King Lear
Hamlet
MacBeth
Othello