this conclusion should base on our group work.: Intro/ group statement (not included in word count):
We know what we are, but know not what we may be. (Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 5)
In setting out on our group work journey, we aimed to passionately seek out and combine our partial perspectives, negotiating the boundaries and tensions between our disciplinary perspectives towards a more complete whole. In recognising our various situated knowledges, we realised that other students in Australia also come from diverse backgrounds, just like ourselves. From Latin American Studies, we have seen Shakespeare used as a tool to teach English; from Asian Studies, we have seen non-English Shakespearean appropriations; from Media and Communications we see Shakespeare referenced in popular culture and media and from International Relations and Global Studies, we have seen how English educational outcomes might be differentially distributed based on class, race or geographical factors. Adaptation is not new to Shakespeare as our disciplinary backgrounds have shown us, Shakespeare has been consistently reinterpreted, reimagined and redefined across time and space we form just one link in this chain of recreation. In creatively combining our bricolage of epistemologies, people and passions”, we have produced a worldly work in progress. It is worldly, as we have drawn on our own lived experience, identities and training to reflect back to students their own heterogeneity in gender, sexuality, ethnicity, English speaking level, migrant status, disability, rural location or class. It is a work in progress, as interdisciplinarity has taught us that we are not fixing the complex problem of students engagement in Shakespeare, rather we are combining our skills to produce something helpful, meaningful and accessible for students. We seek to connect students to rich resources and activities that enhance their learning outcomes and resonate deeply with who they are as people.
Slide 3: The scope of our complex problem
Australian secondary school population is less homogenous than what the curriculum represents:
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students: 5.8% of students in all schools;
83.7% of these students enrolled in government schools;
15% of all Australian children speak a language other than English at home (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2019)
Year 12 completion rate: rural students 58% vs metropolitan students 76%. (ACARA, 2017)
How do we factor in the diversity of students?
Students failing to engage with Shakespeares works both in assessments and beyond the classroom : 56% of teachers felt that students found it difficult to relate; 55% said pupils uninspired by his work (TES, 2016)
How do we bring Shakespeare into a modern, technologically adept world in a way that honours the values and substance of his work, while also reflecting it back through the lived experience of students?
Slide 4: The scope of our complex problem (cotd.) Pat
Pat – Current pedagogical approaches towards Shakespeare require innovation to appeal to a contemporary student demographic who are more adept with technology than ever before. With their being a parallel between high academic achievement and use of Laptops in both rural and metropolitan areas (Bulfin et al., 2016, p. 244), teachers must endeavour to discard approaches to teaching Shakespeare that centre around recitation of the script in class, instead emphasising how different forms of media can offer unique insights into Shakespearean concepts. With the presence of a myriad of Bollywood interpretations of Shakespearean texts on the internet (Singh & Shahhani, 2010, p. 137), the current curriculum ought to broaden the avenues students can explore the meanings of Shakespearean texts. With texts such as Othello and the Tempest, drawing upon themes such as colonialism and slavery, having unique meaning for people of African descent. Thus, teachers are afforded the ability to expand their conceptual understandings of Shakespeare, encouraging students to project their own cultural context onto the texts they explore.
Slide 5: How do we address this problem? Video – Lesson plans, then themes/ social movements.
