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not important, outdated.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
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.
ReplyDeletePart 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.
Part II
ReplyDeleteGetting 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