Using History/Economics in English

I decided to use my unit on Romeo and Juliet for this blog entry.  Romeo and Juliet is required reading at the freshman level and, so, I have taught it many times over the past four years.  During that time, I have come to realize that the most important step to making this unit successful is an in-depth introduction to the upcoming material.  So, I will focus on how I will introduce the play to the class. 

The first resource I found was a PowerPoint that outlined many ways and contexts in which to teach Romeo and Juliet.  The PowerPoint goes over various cultural and pedagogical approaches to teaching the subject matter, which gave me a good place to start looking for historical and economic resources.  While I wouldn’t be able to use this PowerPoint in class, it contained a lot of valuable information for me as an educator.

Here is the PowerPoint I mentioned above.

The historical resource I found was a website about the Elizabethan era.  The website has a lot of information about the time period of Shakespeare.  I would have the students read through this site and then create a written and drawn depiction of a character from the Elizabethan era.  I would have the students share these characters aloud with the class, so that all students could get a sense of what it would be like to be a part of that particular time period.  This is incredibly valuable because it will help give the students context to the play’s setting.  In my experience, part of the aversion to Shakespeare for kids is the perception of a lack of a connection to the words and time period.  A project like this helps them relate more fully, both in writing, graphically, and orally.

If you are interested, here is the Elizabethan era website.

The economic resource I found was a series of blog entries looking at the economic side of Romeo and Juliet, a way in which I never considered before in all of my readings of the play.  As the author states, “economics is, among other things, a study of choice.”  The blog entries delve into each act and describe it in terms of four principles of economics: 1) people choose, 2) when choosing, people respond to incentives, 3) choices have costs, and 4) the costs of our choices lie in the future.  One of the major problems I have with my students while reading the play is helping them to decipher the language.  In addition to what I already do, I think breaking the plot down into these four economic principles will aid in somewhat simplifying the text; by focusing on a “study of choice,” students might be able to better understand what the characters are doing and, more importantly, why the characters are doing it.

Here are the links to the blog entries for the

introduction, Act 1, Act 2, Act 3, Act 4, and Act 5.

There are values and challenges to interdisciplinary teaching and learning.  It helps students approach new information from many angles, allowing for more possibilities of successful learning.  By presenting information in multiple contexts, students are able to anchor the new knowledge better into their own reality.  Interdisciplinary teachings also helps to show how interconnected these various schools of thought are; it eliminates the walls between subjects and makes learning a more universal task.  There are some challenges with such a teaching process, though.  For example, students may be made more confused by having to approach material from multiple angles.  For some students, a more straightforward approach might be the most successful.  Also, this kind of teaching requires the teacher to not only know these different disciplines, but to know them well.  Given how much subject matter there is to learn in any given field already, taking on multiple fields is a daunting task.  Nonetheless, I believe the positives outweigh the negatives.  The goal of education is to help each and every student understand and feel engaged in the material.  The best way for that to happen is by providing as many avenues to understanding as possible.

I reviewed the blogs of Eghosa Obaiza and Karen Vigna 

and responded to the blog of Megan Manley.