English 50: Introduction to Shakespeare
Classroom and Meeting Times: Cedar 10, Monday and Wednesday, 9:40-11:05
Teacher: Jim Toner
Office: Cedar 7
Office Hours: Monday and Wednesday, 11:15-12:45
Tuesday and Thursday, 2:30-3:30
Office Phone: 588-5226
E-mail: tonerj@yosemite.cc.ca.us
Course website: www.gocolumbia.org/tonerj and click on the Shakespeare link
Book: The Riverside Shakespeare (2nd Edition)
What we’ll be doing:
1. Reading some of Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets—sometimes in detail and very slowly, sometimes swiftly and across the surface. I don’t feel the need to have the entire reading list decided at the start, but for those of you who want some rough idea, I expect something like this:
§ About 20 sonnets;
§ About five plays read very closely. As of now (December 14th), I think the choices will be Richard III, Othello, Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado about Nothing, and a fifth choice which you students will decide. In addition, I envision us reading another five or so plays not in detail but in one quick reading. When I taught this course two years ago, a group of us gathered every Friday morning from 9-12 at a Sonora coffee shop and read a play. It was great fun, and I’d love to do that again.
§ Finally, expect to read a good amount of background material and critical essays. The ones in The Riverside are exceptional.
§ Expect us to take a literary approach to these words; that is, we will notice the language, the characters, the themes, the manipulation of meter, the choice of words by their meaning and sound, etc.
2. Write some shorter essays (probably three, about 3-5 pages long) and one longer essay (about 7-10 pages). For those students without much background in writing essays, I will teach you the basics. For everyone, I believe that writing these essays will enable you to appreciate Shakespeare much more deeply; in addition, these essays will be a good way for you to improve your writing skills.
3. Expect many other shorter, informal writing assignments. I am someone who believes that you don’t know what you know until you try to express it. In this way, writing will help us arrive at deeper understandings of Shakespeare.
4. Expect some drama. After all, these writings were intended to be performed, not studied in Tuolumne County, so for us to fully appreciate the splendor of Shakespeare, I want us to feel his words in our mouths—and our hips and our eyes and our toes. I want us to move and, yes, even to act. I want us to experience the challenges an actor must face when she is faced with the script of Othello—to speak (by memory, of course) and to hold a prop and to move around. We’ll do this a lot, and I also anticipate each of you acting in a full scene.
§ The drama part is important. We’ll read about the unique ways the Elizabethans put on plays—for example, back then, actors performed in about 40 plays a year, an extraordinary memory feat alone.
§ I want us to go to one play, or more. This will depend on what plays are being performed from here to the Bay Area. (YEAAA, field trip!) And if you’ll let me dream for a minute, I’d love us to venture up to Ashland, Oregon, where the Oregon Shakespeare Festival puts on the highest quality of Shakespeare plays.
§ Last semester I taught Film Appreciation, and we made some movies. It was a lot of fun, and so I’d like us to make some movies in this class, too. Want to?
5. Expect some unusual things. I want us to indulge in as many creative bursts as you and I can concoct, and though they might appear to be too childish for your sophisticated brains—puppets! Popsicle-stick figures! crayons!—you’ll just have to play along. I believe in the power of play, and I believe Picasso when, at age 88, he said, “It sure took me a long time to become young.”
6. Expect to study the Elizabethan culture and history. To know some of the factors that shaped Shakespeare will help our understanding and appreciation of him.
7. Expect to watch some videos. In class we’ll watch a little bit here and there, but primarily we’ll need to make time outside of class to watch the many, many great videos out on Shakespeare. There are about 8 that I’d like us all to watch.
8. Expect the unexpected. I know you probably hear this all the time from teachers, but it’s especially true for me. I could very easily lay out the week-by-week movement of this course, but what fun would that be.
A few other expectations:
Grading:
Every assignment, test, and essay is given a point value according to its importance and difficulty: for example, 10 points for a bit of homework, 150 points for an essay. All totaled, there will be around 1300 points for the semester. These points are tabulated on a computerized grading program, which makes it easy for you to see your status throughout the semester. Every three to four weeks, I’ll run off your grading sheet, though you can come to my office at any time to see where you stand.
Grading scale: A+: 100-98 B+: 90-88 C+: 80-78 D+: 70-68 F: 60 and
A: 97-94 B: 87-84 C: 77-74 D: 67-64 below
A-: 93-91 B-: 83-81 C-: 73-71 D-: 63-61
Extra credit: I seldom offer any because I feel the course work alone is enough. But if you are highly motivated, and if your grade is on a border, propose some extra work and I’ll probably agree to it.
Late work: I have a heart, and I know that unexpected things happen. Under those rare
circumstances, please come see me so we can work something out. Otherwise, I have to hold you to deadlines.
Plagiarism: Please don’t do it. I have the bizarre skill of being able to sniff out work that is not yours, so you’ll probably get caught. But much worse is that you break a vow of trust between you and me, and that’s what crushes me. You need to know that the college penalty for plagiarism is immediate expulsion from class with an “F” grade. So don’t do it, okay. (Note: Last semester was the first time in my 15 years of teaching that I didn’t have a case of plagiarism. Hooray!)
Not everything can be reduced to a point evaluation. This is English, and English is a subject of spirit and abstraction. This also is education, and education is full of enthusiasm and exploration and kindness—all non-pointable entities. So there is room amid all of this point madness for me you to evaluate you in many other ways. For example, I place a high value on politeness and respect; a high value on being here on time; a high value on your own private journey; a high value on your attempting to do what doesn’t come naturally or easily. None of these values and behaviors are given points, but they do influence my decision of what to give you for your semester grade.
Incidentally, I hate grades. For the most part I think of them as an obstacle to your education because they draw excess attention to themselves. My preference would be to do away with them entirely, but I work in a system that demands them. So I give them out like a good soldier, and I try very hard to give them out fairly.
Assignments:
I try to follow the college recommendation of giving 6 hours of homework per week for this class. Still, to be honest with you, this is a heavy-duty class, and I think it will take more like 8 hours per week to do all that we want to do. With that said, I hope that you have so much fun with Shakespeare that you lose track of time.
And finally…
I hope that by the end of the semester you will realize, at the level of your bones, that Shakespeare has a vital place in your lives. His words have the capacity to enlarge your humanity and your compassion, to make you better people, to make you more alert, to make you more alive. Shakespeare is not something for the educated elite, but it is for you, and its relevance is all around you. His plays and sonnets connect us with our ancestors, with all other humans, and with the mysteries and miracles within each of us. I’m deadly serious when I say that my primary goal in this class is this: For you to read some of William Shakespeare’s carefully arranged words—just words, just ordinary words at that time—that have the power to knock you to your knees and to change your hearts forever.
“If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire
can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?” -Emily Dickinson