"Crushing on a Capulet"

Culture, Cognition, and Simplification in Romeo and Juliet for Young People

Authors

Sheila Cavanagh Emory University

Abstract

Much of the current material designed to introduce Shakespeare to elementary and secondary school students emphasizes how to make Shakespeare "fun." Many texts also maintain that teachers are likely to be frightened of teaching Shakespeare and that curricular materials need to help assuage these concerns. There is very little discussion, however, about the pedagogical reasons for including Shakespeare in the curriculum. This essay provides an overview of current Shakespearean resources for teachers and students in England and the United States, with a focus on Romeo and Juliet. It describes the implicit and explicit assumptions about students, teachers, and Shakespeare that underlie these texts and discusses some responses to Shakespeare found in writings on educational philosophy. It argues that humanists need to devote increased attention to the exploration and explication of the rationales for teaching Shakespeare to children and adolescents and suggests that recent work in cognition and learning is one avenue that warrants particular attention in this endeavor.

Author Biography

Sheila Cavanagh, Emory University

Sheila T. Cavanagh is Masse-Martin/NEH Distinguished Teaching Professor at Emory University and editor of the Spenser Review. She is author of Cherished Torment: The Emotional Geography of Lady Mary Wroth's Urania(Duquesne, 2001); Wanton Eyes and Chaste Desires: Female Sexuality in The Faerie Queene (Indiana, 1994); and numerous articles on Renaissance literature and pedagogy. She is the Director of the Emory Women Writers Resource Project, which received a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Cavanagh received her Ph.D. from Brown University and is currently completing a Master of Science in College Teaching at the University of New Hampshire, where she is focusing on cognition and learning.