Katie's Korner
1) What question are you considering?
How does the assignment of canonical literature still affect modern classrooms, and are there modern pieces of literature that can deliver the same content while being more relevant to a student's individual experience?
2) Why is this question important to you? How does it reflect your prior knowledge and experiences?
There was always a question in my high school English classes: Why do we need to learn a Shakespeare play every year? It’s boring, and they sound like they’re speaking gibberish, which is not essential. This is the rhetoric that students perpetuated when it came time to start the unit on Shakespeare. However, there has to be a reason beyond the curriculum why it’s still required to read these texts. This question spurred me to pursue English in my undergraduate studies, and yes, there is a reason why these texts are still studied to this day, Shakespeare in particular. Shakespeare’s plays provide so much groundwork for modern-day media concepts. Cliches such as star-crossed lovers or having a disarming gentleman tame a shrew is seen consistently through modern literary pieces and media. A fair chunk of early 2000s rom-com movies can be traced back to retellings of Shakespeare’s plays.
3) How does your question connect to the broader educational landscape? Does it or could it connect to the learners in your practicum class? How does it connect to IB, 21st Century Learning, and the curriculum?
I plan to teach my Grade 11 IB Literature class Romeo and Juliet and pair it with West Side Story as a companion piece. Both narratives meet the IB requirement of being on the prescribed reading list; however, one is a more traditional canonical text, and the other is a modern retelling of the canonical text with added intersectionalities and complexities that students in today’s classrooms can relate more directly to.
4) What resources have you explored? List 4-5 sources using APA format. What other resources might be useful as you move forward with this inquiry next term?
Lupton, J. R. (2022). Romeo and Juliet, adaptation and the arts: 'cut him out in little stars'. The Arden Shakespeare.
Ressler, P. (2005). Challenging Normative Sexual and Gender Identity Beliefs through “Romeo and Juliet.” The English Journal, 95(1), 52–57. https://doi.org/10.2307/30047398
Styslinger, M. E., Ware, J. O., Bell, C. W., & Barrett, J. L. (2014). What Matters: Meeting Content Goals through Teaching Cognitive Reading Strategies with Canonical Texts. The English Journal, 103(4), 53–61. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24484221
Taylor, G. J. (1962). “Romeo and Juliet” and “West Side Story”: An Experimental Unit. The English Journal, 51(7), 484–485. https://doi.org/10.2307/811316
I also plan to use the film adaptations of Romeo and Juliet (1996) and West Side Story (2021) to allow students to experience/view the works as the playwrights intended.
5) What do you expect to find?
I aim to determine whether I can still effectively teach traditional themes from canonical texts (Romeo and Juliet) using modern retellings/interpretations (West Side Story). I expect the answer to be yes, but I want to determine to what degree it is effective and whether it is on par with or beyond what the canonical text can teach students. Additionally, with this exploration into modern retellings, I hope students find them more approachable as the language, text structure, and added intersectionalities are more relatable to their experiences.
