How Did I Read Hamlet?!?

Today in class Dr. Burton asked us an interesting question. He stood up, crossed his arms over his chest, swept the class with his piercing gaze and asked, “How did you read Hamlet?”

Well, here’s my confession. How did I read Hamlet? I simply opened the book and read it. Why did I do this you might ask? Well, I did it because in virtually every other class I have taken at BYU, that is simply how reading is done. So you can imagine my surprise when Dr. Burton stands up and demands to know how we read it.

Well, because this was somewhat new to my poor academic-lemming way of thinking, I was very intrigued to learn just what other ways there were to read a Shakespeare play, or anything for that matter.

Together, the class came up with some ideas. Some of them involved the use of the internet and the media. Some involved interaction with other people, and some a more deep interaction with our own thought processes. As I listened to and thought about the ideas being presented, I was struck with a very interesting thought.  Some of the “hows” the class came up are things that I actually did do in my reading. For example; summarizing a scene to clarify it in your mind, imagining a performance of what you’re reading, or even coming up with works of art to represent what you’re reading. These were all things that my mind tried to do before I shut it down so I could finish the assignment. How sad that my first instinct was to turn that voice off. And yet, how amazing to discover that this drive for a deeper, richer experience is already inside me, just waiting to be channeled.

This little personal epiphany has led me to want to establish some concrete goals for this class in order to help that little English nerd inside me to blossom and bloom. For now, I have listed some of the things from our class discussion that jumped out at me. This list may change and adapt as the semester goes on, but for now here are some things I would like to do with Shakespeare.

n  Find great works of art that represent my experience with each play/work we read

n  View multiple (at least 3) performances of one of the plays we read

n  Memorize one of the sonnets

n  Create my own piece of artwork based on one of the works we read

n  Discuss what I’m learning in person with someone else for each work we read

I am really excited to find new and interesting ways to meet all the learning outcomes for this class, both from trial and error, and from seeing what the other students are doing to meet them; I'm excited to see what new possibilities will open up as I become my own teacher. I'm looking forward to discovering Shakespeare for myself.