Our local school district is teaching Shakespeare to 3rd graders! I'm impressed!!

[Beth in SW WA]

http://www.columbian.com/news/localNews/2008/02/02212008_Shakespeares-kids.cfm

Has anyone heard of and/or teach No fear, Shakespeare?
http://nfs.sparknotes.com/

If so, I'd love to hear about it. Thanks!!

[MIch elle]

It's a simplier version of Shakespeare than Folger's, Oxford or other standard versions.

We're currently studying Hamlet. We read Tales from Shakepeare Hamlet version and are currently reading Lois Burdett's Hamlet which is a very simple version in rhyme which is FUN!

Penguin (http://www.penguinreaders.com/pr/resources/index.html) has free study guides for Tales from Shakepeare (http://www.penguinreaders.com/downloads/9780582419414.pdf)and More Takes from Shakespeare - join for free to get the answers.

[Eliana]

My instinctive response is negative... I believe that Shakespeare should be experienced and *felt* before it is taught.

The best preparation for Shakespeare is a very language rich environment, with rich vocabulary, lots of great books being read, poetry read and heard, imagination encouraged, and lots of talking about what is seen and read.

My kids all started seeing Shakespeare productions by the time they were 6, some were 5, one was 4. They have years of seeing, reading, and memorizing Shakespeare before we start 'studying' it (which is around 13 or so).

We do own many of the standard retellings of Shakespeare's stories, and many of the kids like to brush up on the plots before we go to see a play, but some of them have preferred to just take it as it came and then to ask questions or read (or have read to them) the retelling. We generally see each production at least twice, so we get to appreciate it on multiple levels.

But then, to give a complete disclaimer, I don't do poetry analysis or literary analysis in the younger years either - those are high school or upper middle school approaches in our house... My kids don't distinguish between Literature and fiction in their pleasure reading, they read and experience and enjoy... we read and memorize a lot of poetry - we have one medium bookshelf overflowing with poetry volumes - and we talk about what we read, but we don't *study* it really until the later years... so I bring this bias to Shakespeare as well.

Eliana

[Beth in SW WA]

Thank you, ladies, for your responses.

Eliana, do you see the productions at your local community theater or on dvd? Do you have a list that would be good for grammar stage?

Thanks!!

[training5]

eareI would love to see a list as well. What retellings are not boring? Shakespeare has a lot of ...adult themes, shall we say that I am not sure younger kids are ready for. Any retellings out there that leave out those?

[Eliana]

We attend productions at our local theater (Seattle Shakespeare Company, for anyone in the area!).

I don't have any dvd productions I would show uncensored - Branagh has some respectable film adaptations, but not only do they miss the right flavor, but they are either too explicitly violent for little ones or include (imho) inappropriate (and non-Shakespeare) intimacy. (Much Ado About Nothing has realistic s*x motions and sounds seen in an upper window instead of someone calling out to a man down below. It has other unpalatable moments, but that is the worst.) The best film versions are of Macbeth (McKellan & Dench) and Kirasawa's Ran (a Japanese King Lear), but those are, obviously, not something I'd show anyone younger than high school (and my hs kids haven't seen them yet.)

I think, assuming a child knows how to be a civilized audience member (something we make sure all our kids are before ever taking them to a performance), that a live production is the best way to experience Shakespeare.

One warning: always check ahead of time with the theater to find out if there are any special issues with a given production (we accidentally saw a production of Midsummer where Demetrius was a woman (so was Helena..) the kids were young enough, and the costuming vague enough, that it went right over their heads, but we should have done our usual due diligence). Some modernized productions are *fabulous* and not a problem at all, but some are more intense, more disturbing, and/or more explicit.

I also recommend that you familiarize yourself with a play before seeing it - knowing the basic plot line and how things happen can help you decide which plays are right for your family...

Here's a site with info about Shakespeare companies around the country (well, when I look more closely, there are some Canadian companies, one in Germany, and the RSC in England... but most are int he States):

http://shakespeare.palomar.edu/festivals.htm

HTH

Eliana

[Eliana]

We just have the standard retellings:
Stories from Shakespeare by Marchette Chute
Shakespeare Stories I and II by Leon Garfield
Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb
Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare by E. Nesbit
... think we have a McCaughrean volume too, but I'm not sure.

Often when we're going to a play the kids who want a pre-show summary like to have me do my own... though these days they are also likely to ask my eldest (she's 14.5 and she likes to read at least one summary and then the 'real thing' before we go see a play.)

We really only use the retellings as prep work for seeing (or discussion fodder after seeing) a live production. For general enrichment we use full-cast audio productions (mostly by Caedmon or Arkangel).

Eliana

[Jenny in Florida]

We, too, start taking our kids to Shakesperean plays (along with lots of other kinds of theatre) when they are quite young. Although each one saw single specific productions earlier, we started buying season tickets to our local Shakespeare theatre (in Orlando, Florida) for my daughter when she was 8, and bought my son his own season pass beginning when he was 7.

With the exception of a couple of picture books by Bruce Coville that I happened to find on sale, though, we don't bother with most of the re-tellings or simplified versions. I used to try and make my daughter read the Tales from Shakespeare versions, but she simply hated them. She said they were boring to read and left out or changed too much of the story. Usually, when we have time, I read aloud the full play to them before we go see the live production. If we don't have time in our schedule to read the whole play, we go over a synopsis from Wikipedia or some other source. Sometimes, if there is a specific play I want to cover and I can't find a live production to attend, we'll read and then watch a DVD. We're much more tolerant, though, of sexual imagery than many folks on this forum, I suspect. We don't usually have a lot of trouble finding an acceptable film version.

And, for what it's worth, even my 9-year-old son turned up his nose at those No Fear Shakespeare editions. He couldn't see why anyone would want or need "translation" of the original language.

--Jenny

[chiguirre]

I saw this post and AO's use of Shakespeare all through their years and thought, nice idea. Then I thought about implementing it and realized that I couldn't come up with a kid friendly play. Romeo and Juliet (suicide), MacBeth (murder), Much Ado about Nothing (the window scene), Hamlet (body count), Henry V (war scenes)... I would be comfortable doing these in a couple more years, but right now they seem a bit mature. So, what did you start with?

[abbeyej]

We do somewhat similarly to Eliana and Jenny as well... I *do* read aloud (or the kids will read to themselves) one or more simpler retellings of a play before we go see it... I'm fond of the Leon Garfield retellings, but we'll also use E. Nesbit's "Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare" or Bruce Coville (most have lovely pictures), etc. Then we go on to the real thing.

The kids also have the "Animated Shakespeare" set on dvd. It includes 12 plays pared down to 30 minutes each, each with its own distinctive style of animation, and featuring some of the greatest British actors and actresses voicing the characters. Obviously they're abridged mightily, but the kids have enjoyed watching them in preparation for seeing full-length productions.

We also have dvds of a number of Shakespeare adaptations to the screen, and they have watched some of those repeatedly. (Of course, you have to be careful with these and pre-screen, since some things are shown on screen that would not be so explicit in most stage productions.)

Chiquirre, as to which to start with... I'm afraid my kids have seen all of the ones you mentioned and questioned. I know ds' first live production was Macbeth when he was five. (He begged and pleaded for me to take him back to see it again, lol.) I can't remember what dd's first was... And this past year, at eight, ds had the opportunity to play the younger of the two princes in the tower in Richard III. It's a tough play for adults to comprehend -- all that evil, ambition, murder, madness -- but he took it all in stride. Shakespeare has provided us endless discussion possibilities, not in a formal, literature-study way, but in a "this is fascinating" way... Shakespeare really is about human nature, and I *want* to discuss that with my kids -- in a safe way, a somewhat distant way -- at this level. There are murders and betrayals in fairy tales and cartoons, and I think these are important things to talk about. I don't watch the nightly news with my kids -- that's too close to home -- but in Shakespeare, you can talk about characters and motivations and choices, good and bad...

I do check with someone at the theater before taking my kids to see any given show. Some productions focus more heavily on some aspect or other that I might not consider appropriate for my kids at a certain phase. Or I might decide that it's "okay", but that I want to prepare them in some way...

I guess I don't shy away from certain "hard" concepts with my kids. I remember reading Bettelheim's "The Uses of Enchantment" when I was in college, and while I didn't agree with everything he says, the basic premise rang true for me. (For a more contemporary take, dh likes "Killing Monsters" by Gerard Jones, but I'm afraid it's a little too contemporary for me, lol.)

[Beth in SW WA]

Thanks, gang. I'm also going to contact this local teacher and see if I can be a fly on the wall in his class sometime.

Our local Christian Youth Theater is doing a summer Shakespeare theater camp that I'm excited about.

Now -- to get my kids excited about Shakespeare. :)

Thanks, again.

[Jenny in Florida]

. .. but they both loved Midsummer Night's Dream starting when they were about 3 or 4. In fact, they loved it so much that our whole family dressed as faeries for Halloween the year they were 3 and 6. They watched the recent film version (with Kevin Kline and Rupert Everett) over and over to the point that we all had large sections of it memorized. The only thing I can think of about that one that would be problematic is some brief nudity and mild sexual content.

So, unless you count the "in the park" productions they attended while still in a stroller, I guess that would be the first one for both of my kids. Interestingly, they've each gone on to have kind of a special relationship with that play. My daughter had a wonderful opportunity to do a walk-on role as a junior fairy in a professional production when she was about 10. And my son was selected to be a faun in our local ballet company's production when he was 8.

With that said, however, the truth is that we've routinely taken them to see whatever plays our local Shakespeare theatre is producing each year. By the time they were 11 and 8, they had seen Othello (complete with murders and suicide and all) and Henry V (both live and on film) and King Lear (Remember "Out vile jelly?") and Julius Caesar (murder again) and Antony and Cleopatra (those darned asps) and any number of comedies complete with the raunchy bits. Our approach has always been to talk about any potential issues in advance, to make sure that our kids understand our moral or ethical position, and then to discuss some more afterwards. One thing that I think has made a difference for us is that so much of their exposure has been through live productions, when everything tends to be less graphic or realistic. And, you know, for the most part, the folks who do bad things in these plays tend to get their commeuppance. So, we tend to emphasize those lessons.

Obviously, this is a very personal decision. It has certainly worked very well for our family, however.

--Jenny

[FloridaLisa]

Also, be careful about No Fear, Shakespeare. I picked it up No Fear's version of Much Ado last year to use along with a Folger's Edition for my middle-school girls book club. Yikes! Some of the translation was really vulgar and more than any of these girls had ever heard! The original Shakespeare would have gone right over their heads and not made nearly the stir that No Fear did. :o

HTH,
Lisa

[KAR120C]

I saw this post and AO's use of Shakespeare all through their years and thought, nice idea. Then I thought about implementing it and realized that I couldn't come up with a kid friendly play. Romeo and Juliet (suicide), MacBeth (murder), Much Ado about Nothing (the window scene), Hamlet (body count), Henry V (war scenes)... I would be comfortable doing these in a couple more years, but right now they seem a bit mature. So, what did you start with?
If you want a more innocent story, I rather like Twelfth Night. At least I can't remember anything objectionable in that one... :)

[Eliana]

eareI would love to see a list as well. What retellings are not boring? Shakespeare has a lot of ...adult themes, shall we say that I am not sure younger kids are ready for. Any retellings out there that leave out those?

The ones I listed above are fairly pareve (neutral, I guess is the best translation). Some manage that by limiting which plays are covered, but Marchette Chute's covers all the plays, I think, and manages a pretty paerve summary of *Pericles*!!! (In case you aren't familiar with it, Pericles touches on inc*st, r*pe, and pr*stitution... none of these are in the summary she gives.. not even close.)

[Eliana]

I saw this post and AO's use of Shakespeare all through their years and thought, nice idea. Then I thought about implementing it and realized that I couldn't come up with a kid friendly play. Romeo and Juliet (suicide), MacBeth (murder), Much Ado about Nothing (the window scene), Hamlet (body count), Henry V (war scenes)... I would be comfortable doing these in a couple more years, but right now they seem a bit mature. So, what did you start with?

Which play they start with has depended on the child's sensitivity and what SSC was performing when s/he was ready to start attending.

My eldest two started with Henry V - but stage battles aren't scary for most kids (and this kid used to be super sensitive), it's exciting really (the battle scenes in Branagh's Henry, otoh, are *much* more realistic, *I* find them uncomfortable, but I'm a wimp.)

My third with... Macbeth (!) Not a choice I would make for most kids, but it seemed right for him. He *loved* it... though we covered his eyes for a couple of brief moments. He spent the next several months memorizing most of the witches' scenes... (The most recent production SSC did, however, was far too... *intense* and played up the s*xuality between the Macbeths. ...which is why we check with the box office before we come!)

My 4th.. let's see I think it was 12th night, but it might have been The Tempest.

The twins... ?Richard III, perhaps? Yes, it was a modern dress performance, with some interesting alterations to the script... but not scary at all.

I won't let any of the kids see Othello. There was a *fabulous* Romeo and Juliet the other year, but it wasn't right for our kids (though I loved it...) When they are older, we might do Merchant of Venice, but for now, as Jewish kids, it doesn't seem right. Never Titus Andronicus - the only Shakespeare play I hate. We avoid Taming of the Shrew as well - a complex, difficult play, and one I've seen very, very well done several times, but not for kids.

They have seen: Henry V, Henry VI 1 and 2, Richard II, Richard III, Macbeth, Lear, Julius Caesar, Comedy of Errors, Loves Labors Lost, Midsummer Nights Dream, As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, Tempest, Measure for Measure(!), Cymbeline, and Winter's Tale... plus a few others at the local Shakespeare in the Park performances.

The window scene in Much Ado is not explicit (unless you watch Branagh's film version, grrrr!).

In fact, I've found that inappropriate stuff goes right over my kids' heads (assuming the production is tastefully done).

Although we are a very sheltering family in general, we've chosen to let our children encounter issues in Shakespeare which we would otherwise censor. Shakespeare has such a broad, compassionate, insightful portrayal of humanity, such a celebration of human integrity... and, as I said, things the kids aren't ready for really have gone right over their heads.

I'm tired and no longer thinking (or typing) coherently (my dashes, ellipses, and parentheses are going to take over soon!).

If you have any other questions, or any content specific questions about any of the plays, let me know!

Eliana