Embracing Difficulty: The Challenge of Teaching Shakespeare\u27s Language

William Shakespeare’s language has always been thought of as extremely challenging to understand, especially to high school students. Too often teachers give up on embracing this difficulty and use No Fear Shakespeare or film versions in their classrooms to replace Shakespeare\u27s original language. However, the beauty of Shakespeare lies in the foreignness and strangeness of his language, so are students really learning Shakespeare if all they examine are translations or adaptations? This essay examines how teachers attempt to teach Shakespeare, what challenges teachers must overcome to effectively teach Shakespeare, and what lessons can look like if both teachers and students embrace the difficulty of Shakespeare’s language together