{"id":8419,"date":"2014-08-05T08:14:24","date_gmt":"2014-08-05T13:14:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/college.unc.edu\/?p=8419"},"modified":"2024-07-02T14:40:35","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T14:40:35","slug":"shakespearesummer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=8419","title":{"rendered":"A midsummertime Shakespeare"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Shakespeare<\/a>
Shakespeare professors David Baker (holding skull) and Ritchie Kendall (background). (photo by Dan Sears)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the comedy \u201cThe Complete Works of Shakespeare (abridged),\u201d members of the Reduced Shakespeare Company boast that they present all 37 plays in 97 minutes. The rapid-fire dialogue, costume changes and slapstick antics are hilarious.<\/p>\n

This is NOT the way Shakespeare is taught in the super-short summer and Maymester sessions at Carolina, however.<\/p>\n

So how can a professor squeeze the works of the Bard of Avon into the 4\u00bd weeks of summer session or the (gasp) 12 days of Maymester?<\/p>\n

\u201cI do the opposite of \u2018Shakespeare (abridged),\u2019 \u201c said David Baker, who teaches eight plays in the regular term and six or seven in the summer. This year, they were \u201cOthello,\u201d \u201cMerchant of Venice,\u201d \u201cA Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream,\u201d \u201cHenry V,\u201d \u201cHamlet,\u201d \u201cMuch Ado About Nothing\u201d and \u201cRomeo and Juliet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Details and nuances<\/strong><\/h4>\n

\u201cGiven the compressed schedule, you could do a new play every two days or every three days,\u201d Baker said. But by doing fewer plays, \u201cyou get the details and nuances that come from slow reading. Each of them is so rich.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ritchie Kendall, who taught Shakespeare in Maymester this year, uses a similar approach. \u201cThe number of contact hours is the same as the regular term,\u201d he said. \u201cIn Maymester, we do fewer plays, but we spend an enormous amount of time on those plays. The concentrated force can be very powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his regular class, Kendall teaches 10 plays. In Maymester this year, he taught five: \u201cA Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream,\u201d Henry IV, Part 1,\u201d \u201cHamlet,\u201d \u201cKing Lear\u201d and \u201cMuch Ado About Nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not just about how many plays they teach. It\u2019s also about how they teach them. Students stuck in classrooms for 1\u00bd hours in summer session or 3\u00bc hours in Maymester five days a week demand a different classroom style. \u201cIt\u2019s not a reproduction of the regular term class in small scale. It\u2019s a different kind of teaching,\u201d Kendall said.<\/p>\n

For instance, the professor may show film clips of the same scene from \u201cMuch Ado About Nothing\u201d and compare how the Globe Theatre (traditional stage setting), actor\/director Kenneth Branagh (on location in sunny Tuscany) and director Joss Whedon (filmed in his own LA home) interpreted Shakespeare\u2019s text.<\/h4>\n

Gravedigger in \u2018Hamlet\u2019 had the spade<\/h4>\n

The smaller classes also allow more debate and discussion and a chance for groups of students to act out a scene for the rest of the class. In Maymester, Kendall took his class to the arboretum to perform. \u201cThe student playing the gravedigger in \u2018Hamlet\u2019 had the spade and I was afraid someone would see it and ask us to leave,\u201d Kendall said.<\/p>\n

So what kinds of students spend their summer sweating over Shakespeare? Rarely English majors. Often they are undergraduates who were on a diploma track until discovering that they were a General Education or Western Civilization credit shy. Shakespeare, aka ENGL 225, counts as both, and it\u2019s almost always offered in the summer.<\/p>\n

Take Zakeria Haidary, a business administration major who finished his junior year in May. Even though he\u2019d come to Carolina with several hours of AP credits, he was missing a General Education requirement needed for graduation.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it was not the purest of motives,\u201d Haidary said via Skype from Doha, Qatar. Oh yeah, that was another reason to squeeze Shakespeare into Maymester. He had already snagged a great summer internship abroad with Hill+Knowlton Strategies.<\/p>\n

Kendall, his professor, taught in a way that was \u201cin-depth, but not overwhelming,\u201d Haidary said. He was in one of the groups that performed a scene from \u201cMidsummer Night\u2019s Dream\u201d in the arboretum in May.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was one of the fairy queen\u2019s henchmen,\u201d he said, in the scene in which an enchanted Queen Titania falls in love with Bottom, who has the head of a donkey. He would have liked to play the donkey, Haidary said, but \u201cthey wouldn\u2019t let me. The kid who had the horse mask got to play the donkey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haidary highly recommends Maymester to other students. \u201cIf you still want to have a full summer, it\u2019s a great way to get the benefit of summer school in a short amount of time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

And if you will be studying a \u201cMidsummer Night\u2019s Dream,\u201d don\u2019t forget to bring your horse mask.<\/p>\n

By Susan Hudson, UNC Communication and Public Affairs<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How can a professor squeeze the works of the Bard of Avon into the 4\u00bd weeks of summer session or the (gasp) 12 days of Maymester? Learn how David Baker and Ritchie Kendall teach Shakespeare during the summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8420,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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