Espinosa, Ruben. "Student approaches to adaptations of Shakespeare." Throughlines. www.throughlines.org/suite-content/student-adaptations-shakespeare. [Date accessed].
Student approaches to adaptations of Shakespeare
Students use Shakespeare to interrogate contemporary social justice issues.
In this assignment, Ruben Espinosa offers a creative entry point for students to engage with Shakespeare. Students produce a short film that must touch on a national or local social justice issue using dialogue from one of the plays they’ve studied in class. By focusing these adaptations on students’ interests and communities, students are given the opportunity to question who is allowed access to Shakespeare and consider how these plays are often weaponized against marginalized populations.
Foul and Fair - an example student production
La Muerte de Ofelia - an example student production
Further learning
Henry V and belonging
Shakespeare's language and status in the Western canon can feel inhospitable to many students, especially students of color. Teaching Henry V with a focus on linguistic identity, legitimacy, and belonging can open conversations that allow students to carve out a Shakespeare for themselves.
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Othello and Barbary's blues
Justin P. Shaw is interested in how appropriation can mean theft as well as “making something new.” Using a framework of Black music and the history of appropriation of the Blues to shed light on Desdemona’s memory of Barbary’s song in Shakespeare's Othello, Shaw asks the question: where is the line between tribute and theft?
