I JUST FOUND A BOOK! Required reading for Shakespeare study!

Thanks for the heads up! My local library has it and I just put a hold on it. 🙂

Bookworm…do you feel this is something to own in hardback or would the Kindle version be suitable?  If it requires underlining and marking with post-its and such I prefer hardback.  I hate the highlighting features of ebooks!

A friend sent me this article, “Fancy’s Children” by Susan Wise Bauer this morning re. this book. I’m not a fan of Wise Bauer’s methodology or her books, but I think she’s on the mark in this article regarding the choosing of what to study and memorize from Shakespeare. I’ve recently purchased Ludwig’s book and have yet to start it, so my comments here are more about agreeing with Wise Bauer on careful selection of age appropriate plays and selections rather than indicting Mr. Ludwig’s book.

You can bet I will always choose my own passages or plays when it comes to the Bard! I really enjoy Shakespeare and I do consider reading him an important part of becoming an educated individual, but that’s never to outshine the importance of the Lord, the Bible, and a Christian worldview. There are sections of plays we skip and some plays we won’t touch ie. Merry Wives of Windsor – no thank you.

I’m looking forward to reading Mr. Lugwig’s book and applying the good in our home, but I did think this article worthy of a mention.

Christie

Missceegee – I can’t get to the article without signing up with a subscription. =/

I have the book and finished it about 2 1/2 weeks ago. I was totally excited about Shakespeare when I was done because he is so enthusiastic and I loved how he explained the characters and the plays he chose. I wanted to go find a well-done production and watch them all. =) 

However, depending on your children ages and maturity, I very much agree that we need to be careful about which plays that we share and about what we choose to commit to our children’s memory.

We started memorizing a passage this week from A Midsummer Night’s Dream since we have already studied it and my children enjoyed it.

We will continue to memorize Shakespeare and we will choose our own passages from the plays we actually have read. I think in the end it will mean more to them because they will have already made their own connections with it.

Another thing that I have enjoyed the last few years after reading about some of Shakespeare’s plays (as well as actually reading the plays) is how much richer other books are – including CM’s Original Series – because I understand the storylines of the characters the author is referring to. There are so many subtle nuances that you lose when you don’t know the story. I feel the same way about mythological references in books. You miss something the author is speaking of when you don’t know the story they are referencing.  Anyway…off my soapbox since it really isn’t the point of the thread… =) 

Still can’t get in, but what little I could read is along the lines of her objections to the some of the selections he choose to have his children memorize. (She has promised to link the full article when it is not being protected by the WSJ anymore).

And I have to agree with Susan on that point, even without seeing the rest of the article. He did say in the book to have your kids acting out some of the parts that they were memorizing. I raised my eyebrows at that a time or two because, like Susan mentioned, he did chose some pieces that we will not be memorizing…Yikes! They might even give my overly sensitive 13yo nightmares. 😉

I did enjoy his enthusiasm and knowledge. He made the idea of Shakespeare be less intimidating for me, somehow. This will not be a book I hand off to my children and say “read it and do it”, though. =)

Like I said, we will choose our own things to memorize. And I choose the plays we do – so that makes the difference for me.

I’m not trying to be contentious or diagreeble, especially since you already know this and study Shakespeare –  I just want to encourage others that are trying to decide about this topic that Shakespeare should not be completely set aside in a full and broad education. IMO, if one chooses not to read and study his actual plays for what ever reason, it would still be beneficial for a child to be familiar with his works through the Nesbit and Lamb retellings to help their understanding/comprehension when reading older living books that we use so often in a CM education.

I read the first several chapters of Ludwig’s book. I think it is great to read about someone who loves Shakespeare so much and how he shared it with his children. He has some neat methods that we may try as a family. But like previous posters have mentioned, we will choose our own selections.  So this book may be one you would check out from the library first to see how it fits with your family 🙂