Has anyone created a lit course centered around plays and theatre?

[Porridge]

Has anyone created an "honors" level lit course centered around reading, discussing, and viewing influential plays?

Which works would you include?

Have you found good supporting resources like Great Courses or books or essays?

 

[royspeed]

22 hours ago, WTM said:

Has anyone created an "honors" level lit course centered around reading, discussing, and viewing influential plays?

WTM:

That's a pretty fair description of my Shakespeare Intensives, with the caveat that we read a single playwright — albeit the greatest playwright in English, and perhaps in any language.

Among the things that I think work with this kind of course:

• Close reading & discussion in which the emphasis is on the students imagining the events on stage. Shakespeare is so rich that this kind of discussion is handsomely rewarded. We read a scene aloud, and then I pepper the students with questions, challenging them to articulate what's going on in the scene: What does she mean here? — or: What's he thinking? — or: What's she not saying? — With plays, the work of art is not visible on the page; the work of art is what happens in the minds & hearts of the audience when they see it performed. So when they read a play, students must imagine how everything plays on stage. 
• Viewing the same scene from several different productions. Again, this sort of effort works well with Shakespeare because, for any give play, we often have access to so many different versions. Students are often stunned to see how differently the same scene can be acted, staged, costumed, lit, shot.
• Reading great literary analysis. Students who are asked to write essays of literary analysis may never have read any such essays. So they have no models — no clue what great literary analysis looks like. Accordingly, I try to track down great essays on the plays we read. The problem: Finding such essays is no mean feat. Great literary analysis is hard to come by; as many as 9 out of 10 essays are hopelessly mediocre, stuffy, academic, shedding no real light on the work in question, and not in a million years would I want my students to write in that manner. I've found only a handful of great essays on Shakespeare, and students get genuinely excited about some of them...

Hope this helps, WTM.

Edited March 28, 2022 by royspeed
Didn't say anything helpful to the original poster...

[JennyD]

I wouldn't call it honors level, but I did something like that for the literature component of my oldest's 9th grade English class.  We read Agamemnon, Oedipus Rex, Antigone, The Birds, Everyman, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, and Death of a Salesman.  If we hadn't run out of time I would have added one more contemporary play.  In addition to reading and discussing the plays we watched a number of film adaptations (including West Side Story),  And I cannot recommend highly enough Elizabeth Vandiver's Great Courses lectures on Greek tragedy.  

 

 

[El...]

We're about the begin (drumroll please) The Summer of Shakespeare. We're very excited about it!

DD14 is in the middle of a chronological world literature survey and will arrive at Shakespeare right on time for summer.

We'll read each of the eight or ten plays I've picked, watch a fairly faithful-to-the-text version, read it again, and then watch a fun version or do some other study of it. We're going to watch West Side Story after Romeo and Juliet, and 10 Things I Hate About You after Taming of the Shrew. 

I have a biography of Shakespeare by Bill Bryson, an author she has liked before. I have some TED talks, including one that compares Shakespeare's poetry to rap, and a few panel discussions of racism/antisemitism in Shakespeare's works. Oh, and there's a pretty gorgeous hour and a half on YouTube where a young Ian McKellen teaches about performing Shakespeare. 

She's hoping to obtain a small role in a local theatrical production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Will that be honors level? I don't know. I need to research that, and put together some sort of writing assignment. 

Edited March 28, 2022 by elroisees
Spelling, and left out words....

[Porridge]

15 minutes ago, JennyD said:

I wouldn't call it honors level, but I did something like that for the literature component of my oldest's 9th grade English class.  We read Agamemnon, Oedipus Rex, Antigone, The Birds, Everyman, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, and Death of a Salesman.  If we hadn't run out of time I would have added one more contemporary play.  In addition to reading and discussing the plays we watched a number of film adaptations (including West Side Story),  And I cannot recommend highly enough Elizabeth Vandiver's Great Courses lectures on Greek tragedy.  

 

 

What you describe is what I kind of had in mind. I will look into the Great Courses series you mentioned.

[JennyD]

We did some composition work separate from our literature studies, but I also assigned a few literature-related essays and gave at least one test.  

[Lori D.]

"Looking for ideas/information for a Plays As Literature course" -- older thread with possible ideas of interest

[Farrar]

I did. We did "world drama" one year so we could focus more on European and international drama since I knew we were doing American lit the following year. I did a list of plays and then a bingo card of assignments that could apply to any of them - everything from some different lit analysis essays to making a set design or a program for the play. 

[Lilaclady]

We have been really enjoying these books as my dd is now into theater. We did the middle one last year and she is doing the advanced one this year. I think they are out of print but you can get used ones on thrift or other online bookstores 

 

[Porridge]

5 hours ago, Lilaclady said:

We have been really enjoying these books as my dd is now into theater. We did the middle one last year and she is doing the advanced one this year. I think they are out of print but you can get used ones on thrift or other online bookstores 

 

Awesome, thank you! Do you know who the publisher is? Or, if it’s not too much trouble, could you provide the ISBN?

[Lilaclady]

No problem publisher is Jamestown And ISBN is 0-89061-897-6E

[Porridge]

8 hours ago, Lilaclady said:

No problem publisher is Jamestown And ISBN is 0-89061-897-6E

Many thanks!!!

[Farrar]

Ooh, that has a David Ives. Nice choice for a recent playwright.

[Lilaclady]

On 3/27/2022 at 7:12 PM, elroisees said:

We're about the begin (drumroll please) The Summer of Shakespeare. We're very excited about it!

 

For your summer of Shakespeare, may I suggest the modern scholar - Shakespeare’s 10 great comedies. The professor did a really thorough overview and comparison of 10 of Shakespeare’s comedies and it was really very well done. These are cds and I got the copy from the library. 

[El...]

21 minutes ago, Lilaclady said:

For your summer of Shakespeare, may I suggest the modern scholar - Shakespeare’s 10 great comedies. The professor did a really thorough overview and comparison of 10 of Shakespeare’s comedies and it was really very well done. These are cds and I got the copy from the library. 

Thank you! I'll look it up!