Best of the Week: Shakespeare (Blog 6)

        Reading Shakespeare this quarter has actually been anything but the stereotypical, mind numbing reading of Romeo and Juliet . Our class is taking a pretty unconventional approach to reading A Midsummer Night's Dream and that rules because it puts a lot of people out of their comfort zone (including me). I absolutely sound like a fourth grader saying "it rules", but putting us out of our comfort zone by making us stand in front of the class and read with legitimate emotion is a pretty good idea. It's kind of a funny, get to know you better exercise that pushes us to see this play, and our classmates, from a different perspective. Rather than having every aspect of the play explained to us like kindergarteners and still not understanding it, we've got to learn to comprehend what we read ourselves (even though we've still got help).

        But I think the best part might be that Mr. Allen won't take our crap when it actually comes to reading out loud. If it sounds bad when you say it, lucky you, you get to do it again. He has no shame about it and I think that's actually pretty funny. You can suddenly see people starting to regret their decision to go up and perform the part of Puck in rapping form because all of the blood drains out of their face and they look like they want to vomit. But I've honestly never had such a positive experience with in-school Shakespeare.