Shaking up Shakespeare: Teaching for the Contemporary High School English Classroom

Contemporary high school English students find Shakespeare distant because they believe Shakespeare is hard to understand. Pairing Shakespeare with thematically-similar contemporary texts can make his works more accessible to students. Using different angles on the same theme shows students that Shakespeare presented some universal issues that still have relevance today. The Literacy Design Collaborative modules included within this thesis use Shakespeare in cooperation with other texts to focus on a specific theme. Using the module structure, teachers can organize the unit’s overarching goals and can include all handouts and necessary materials. This structure of design incorporates literacy-centered practices in order to ensure the students can present a wellwritten argument after reading the texts. The final writing task and use of additional contemporary texts allow for students to make connections to the unit’s theme and enhance comprehension than if Shakespeare were taught in isolation as its own unit