It's Only Shakespeare

My Students

Imagine trying to read a story in which all the letters were mixed up. Now, imagine that all your friends not only read that story but understand it! My students are struggling readers, but they want the opportunity to take on Shakespeare and enjoy him the way their peers do.

I am so fortunate to teach in a school where resources are readily available to my students.

We are fortunate to live in a community where most families have enough food to eat, money to buy school supplies, and love to go around. However, in this fortunate community, there are students who often do not get what they need at home and whose families often struggle to provide them with the resources they need to be successful. My students often come from chaos. In our classroom, we create a safe space filled with admiration and respect for one another. I love my chaotic kids. What I have found about these students -- who are so often categorized as troubled, struggling, or high-risk -- is that they are hard workers who are willing to overcome the obstacles that life has handed them. Too often, they have only achieved to others' expectations of them, and those expectations have been too low. I want to challenge my students so that they believe in their abilities.

My Project

When my students started to complain to me that they were not reading Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet while all the other “smart” kids were, I knew I had to find a way to provide them the means to read this work. While my students’ current reading abilities -- usually between 4th to 6th grade -- do not afford them the opportunity to read Shakespeare from our textbook, I think the themes of the text might have lasting effects on these students. So, I am asking for a class set of Shakespeare Made Easy: Romeo and Juliet. We need only twenty-five copies to be shared by classes throughout the day. Not only will the opportunity to read Shakespeare make my students believe more truly in their intelligence, I think the themes of rebellion, love, and moderation are themes to which these students can particularly relate and which they will genuinely appreciate. Literature changes outlooks, and I think this classic will affect my students positively.

My students need to feel that they are capable of anything, and reading Shakespeare provides a challenge to them that could inspire them to tap their full potential.

Not only will reading Shakespeare provide a challenge, but these students in particular will identify with the themes of love, betrayal, rebellion, and undefined hatred. Through reading Shakespeare’s poetry, perhaps my students will find the means to express fears and hopes that have gone unsaid for too long.