Secular Charlotte Mason

Here is my personal bias on Shakespeare. This is my write-up from the Shakespeare portion of the recent PDX Charlotte Mason Support Group meeting. I will, eventually, update the website's Shakespeare page to include these resources along with some others but thought you all would appreciate getting the nutshell version now. 

We discussed the best way to enhance our children's enjoyment of Shakespeare. I think we all agreed that:

1. Shakespeare is meant to be experienced/seen and not read. Read the actual

unabridged plays only if your child wants to.

2. It was a 50/50 toss up as to whether we need to read a brief version of the

play prior to seeing it. My kids really seem to need to "prepare" before seeing

the plays but not all kids seem to have this need. Some kids have gone to see

the plays cold and enjoyed them immensely.

3. Most definitely take your children to see a live production! This is what

makes Shakespeare fun! Shakespeare in the Park and the Shoebox Theater in

Portland were both mentioned.

4. Someone recommended taking children to see other productions while they are

young (the children's puppet theater was mentioned) so that they will be use to

live performances prior to experiencing Shakespeare.

5. Start with the comedies in the young years slowly working your way up to the

tragedies in high school. The families who have Shakespeare fans seem to have

all started with A Midsummer Nights Dream as their children's first experience

with Shakespeare.

Here are my favorite resources, you will notice that the two books most

recommended on CM lists are not on my list (the version by Charles & Mary Lamb

and the one by E. Nesbit). This is because I think those versions are too skimpy

and don't fully convey the feel of each play. I use them only when my other

resources fail me (which has happened for a couple of plays).

Elementary Years:

Shakespeare Stories by Leon Garfield. My kids love this set of two books, even

my child who is not a Shakespeare fan will listen to this version.

King of Shadows by Susan Cooper is historical fiction related to A Midsummer

Night's Dream. Another fictional Shakespeare book is Shakespeare Stealer or

something like that. We have not read that one yet. My kids recommend Terry

Deary's Shakespeare Stories which is similar in format to his Horrible Histories

series.

All ages:

The National Endowment for the Arts has a free resource for teachers called

Shakespeare in American Communities. I love the timeline that is included. The DVDs will be too dry for some kids. This is worth getting, esp. as it is free. I no longer have the link so you'll have to google it.

Biographies:

There seem to be a plethora of Shakespeare biographies. I happen to use

Shakespeare: The World as a Stage by Bill Bryson and Young Shakespeare by

Russell Fraser; mostly because I found them at a decent price. Both seem to be

for young adults.

High School:

My son recommends the Folgers Shakespeare Library editions of all the plays. It

is the version his class uses. We've looked at others but he prefers these

because they include explanations of every stanza. He says he'd be lost without

those explanations!

Standard Deviants Shakespeare Tragedies. My son likes the SD goofiness. We use

them for multiple subjects.

Isaac Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare. I use this only as a reference when we want

to clarify something from one of the plays. Of course, it helps that my son

loves Asimov.

Shakespeare in the Movies by Douglas Brode. My son and I watch a fair amount of

Shakespeare and wanted to expand his horizons beyond the versions that have most

recently been made. This includes references to some obscure versions that my

old movie loving friend assures me are great.