Monday, March 31, 2014

Prototype 2.0



Mr. Silas A. Ramsbottom
McGraw-Hill Education
P.O. Box 182605
Columbus, OH 43218

Dear Mr. Ramsbottom,

Have you ever seen a Shakespeare play marketed to a middle school student? With all the editions of Shakespeare plays on the market there is essentially a non-existent Shakespeare market for middle school aged persons. Because of our love for the arts, and of course Shakespeare, we believe that an edition to suit this particular audience would be whole-heartedly embraced by teachers, students, and over ambitious parents who want their children to be well cultured. It is not only our love for the Bard that has inspired us to create an edition of As You Like It that is suitable for a middle school audience, but because of the many benefits that such an edition would bring to middle school students and their teachers.
Usually the first experience that students have with Shakespeare is in high school; plays like Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet are common choices of high school teachers. These dramas lend themselves to the more serious and tragic side, with rather depressing or gruesome endings. In a general sense, when high school students hear the word “Shakespeare” their adolescent frames tremble with fear or their developing minds dread the experience. They associate the wondrous name of Shakespeare with words like: boring, difficult, not important, outdated. We desire to ease this reoccurring problem by exposing students to Shakespeare at a younger age through a more humorous and light-hearted play, with the hopes that doing so would lay the ground for future enjoyment and involvement.
One very probable reason why teachers do not introduce Shakespeare to middle school students could be due to the noticeable lack of appropriate editions for that particular age range. While there are a variety of choices for high school teachers to choose from, no such selection exists for middle school teachers. Editions like the Folger Library: General Shakespeare Readers As You Like It have simplified texts and even explanations of unfamiliar words annotated on each page. A middle school teacher could use the front matter, which is more appropriate for a high school audience, but it would require vast amounts of elaboration and selected paragraph readings for the students. Manga offers a simple and creative edition of As You Like It in the form of a graphic novel. However, while this text may be accessible to students, teachers might find it challenging to teach from given that it has no other materials for them but adapted text and drawings; some of which hinge on inappropriateness. Despite the accessibility of these editions, they do not adapt the gender/cross-dressing issue in a manner appropriate for a middle school audience.
Our edition is both accessible and appropriate for middle school students. The text of the play is edited and adapted for their particular needs, while still maintaining the integrity of the Shakespearean language. Unfamiliar or difficult words are annotated at the bottom of each page, but not overwhelmingly so. Rather than emphasizing the ambiguity of gender or homosexual undertones, our edition effectively talks about the role of men and woman at that time and in the present, all the while maintaining the humorous nature of the play. Also, between acts there are short educational readings to help students to have a better understudying of Shakespeare, the theater, and themes in As You Like It. Taking it a step further there are also several critical thinking questions that will encourage the students to develop and use analytical skills. This is especially important, as this is a skill covered in the common core across multiple grades. Please, peruse through the manuscript that we have included and it will speak for itself.
A lack of appropriate editions might not be the only obstacle preventing middle school teachers for teaching Shakespeare. The teachers themselves could be the obstacles. Perhaps these teachers feel that their students would not be able to grasp the complexities of a Shakespearean text or perhaps they are unsure on how to go about teaching Shakespeare to twelve and thirteen year-olds at an appropriate level. Our edition, too, addresses this possible problem by supplying a teacher’s edition of the text. In essence the teacher’s edition is identical to the students in order that there is no confusion when reading together as a class or assigning homework. But in addition to that, the teacher’s edition is a more in-depth look into historical content and references of sources where to find more information if so desired. This allows the teacher to choose how much of and what to share with the students. More analytical and summative questions are included that the teacher may use for more discussion or test questions. This allows teachers to feel comfortable and confident teaching As You Like It in an appropriate and engaging manner for their middle school classrooms.
We have great confidence and faith that our edition will help middle school students (and teachers) feel successful with Shakespeare. Our edition allows for earlier exposure to this great Bard and will therefore lessen the anxiety and increase excitement for future Shakespeare encounters. Please, look through the manuscript that we have included. We hope you see the great potential and benefits that we do in having a middle school edition of As You Like It. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,



Ashley Campbell
Jacob Matthews
Natalie McChesney
Bethanie Sonnefeld

Changes to this version:
Cover letter:

  • Full cover letter
  • More comparative to other middle school editions
  • More persuasive about selling it
  • Fewer sweeping statements
  • Actually a letter

Preface:

  • Minor grammar errors
  • Simplified sentences to better fit a middle-school audience
    • The previous prototype had confusing sentences
  • Another section feature the Globe Theater
  • Images of both the interior of the Globe Theater and William Shakespeare

Table of Context:

  • Minor spelling and grammar changes in the annotations

Text:

  • Another fully edited and annotated scene

Critical Thinking Section:

  • Grammar errors
  • Reworded sentences
  • More accessible paragraphs

Notes: 

  • Notes to cite sources 



2 comments:

  1. Hello fellow Shakespeare scholars! Sorry these comments are a little late in coming. If you recall, we gave you a hard-copy review of your edition at the end of class on Wednesday, courtesy of the lovely Eliza. Hopefully that will be helpful to you to work from. Since that review focused more on editorial remarks and grammatical considerations, what we'll mainly focus on here is a few broader picture things you might want to consider for your edition, as well as a few thoughts on formatting.

    Part I

    Your pitch is strong (we giggled at your Despicable Me 2 reference), we think it could be stronger if you polished some of your sentences up and made them a little more direct. For example, switching words like "would" to "will" makes your tone less passive and more assertive. Your edition is good! Be confident in it, and in its marketability! Along with this, taking a second look at some of your punctuation can help with this as well. Remember that you're trying to create an impact with your pitch, and punctuation that directs your readers to a clear point can make a big impact.

    We really liked the overall tone and approach you took with your edition, and the way you chose to focus your introduction with a more historical emphasis. Since this is directed at middle schoolers, your edition would be one the first pieces of literature they would read from a non-contemporary or modern time period, so giving them good historical background is awesome. We also thought your approach of talking about gender roles by talking about disguises was a wonderful way of making that aspect of the play age appropriate and interesting. Going along with the historical background, we had a couple of thoughts on your preface. The page length of each section is a little visually awkward. It's not a full-page, but it's more than a half page...there's something a disconcerting about it. We thought that you could either make the font size a little bigger in order to fill in the space, or to start the section on the Globe Theatre immediately after the section on Shakespeare, or some combination of the two that gets you to either a full two pages, or a more balanced page and a half. As a final formatting note for your introductory materials, we would recommend aligning your Table of Contents to the left and adding appropriate page numbers where needed.

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  2. Part II

    Getting into your actual annotated text, we think you have a great start to your vocabulary lists, and that's a great idea to include! In fact, we liked it so much we would like to see even more vocabulary. We did a little bit of basic research on the Google, and the kinds of books that middle school students read are things like "A Wrinkle in Time;" "Island of the Blue Dolphins;" "Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry;" and "The Diary of Anne Frank." Since that's the reading level you're working with, we felt it would be appropriate to give some more vocabulary and definitions. Also in our looking around, we found this website: http://quizlet.com/11951105/middle-school-reading-vocabulary-flash-cards/. That might help you decide what kinds of words middle schoolers typically have for vocabulary, and might help you decide how many and what kind of words to annotate in your editions. If you expand the number of words you annotate as vocabulary, underlining it might become distracting or confusing, and if that is the case, you might play with different ways of distinguishing the vocabulary in-text, such as italics, bolding, or using a different shade of grey (you can decide as you like it!). Since you may end up with more vocabulary words, we would suggest giving your vocabulary list its own page either before or after each scene, just to set it apart a bit and make it easier for teachers and students to find and reference. Since this is for middle schoolers, giving a glossary or vocabulary list of literary terms might not be a bad idea. In some of your questions, you ask them about things such as personification...this might be the first time our readers have run across the idea of personification in their studies, so they might need help understanding literary terms like that. This might help you rework some of your questions to be a little more grade appropriate and kid-friendly.

    Lastly in the department of finding/defining/referencing things, adding line numbers would probably help students and teachers be able to find specific parts of the play better as they read in class. Going along with this, formatting the different speakers so that there is a hanging indent after the speaker-tag and first line of text might help make some of those bigger chunks of text less overwhelming for your readers.

    Overall, it looks like your edition is starting to come together nicely. It's very expeditious of you to take on this play for a middle school audience, and we commend you for it! Good luck this coming week as you make your final tweaks and adjustments to your edition.

    -The Spear Shakers

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