This activity begins with the following anecdote (which I have on permanent loan from my grad school linguistics professor): if you went to the gas station and the attendant stated, “We ain’t got no gas today,” you wouldn’t say, “A double negative, wonderful! Then, fill ‘er up!” You would know he meant there wasn’t any gas that day, even if that’s not what he technically said. Without thinking about it, you would “translate” the colloquial statement into the understood truth.
This anecdote then pivots into a discussion and activity on how what we say can usually be said multiple ways, depending on who we’re speaking with:
- On the available display (overhead, Smartboard, etc.), I display some text from Shakespeare, usually from Much Ado About Nothing, which I find to be one of the more accessible plays. I will have the class read through it together and attempt to “translate” it as a group into modern conversational English as I act as scribe and write their translation on the board.
- Next, we watch the related scene from the film. Again, Much Ado About Nothing works particularly well here as the Branagh version is evocative and entertaining. Following the film clip, we revisit our “translation” and see if we would change anything. Usually, the students now understand a few aspects and lines in the scene better, and we discuss how the visual interpretation of the scene translated some of the textual elements.
- As homework, the students were asked to bring in the lyrics to a favorite song. At this point, I ask them to take out the lyrics and “translate” their songs into Shakespearean English. After a few minutes, the students share some of their newly translated lyrics, and the other students have to guess what the original song was.
The corresponding homework assignment for this lesson is for the students to write two poems with the same general content. One should be personally “stylized” – written how the student would ordinarily write a lyric, whether that is as a rap song, a ballad, a poetic verse, etc. Then they must take their writing and write it as they imagine Shakespeare would. To assist with this creative process, the students can access any one of a number of Shakespearean dictionaries available online, where they can discover words like mammer to replace hesitate.
Outcomes: This writing assignment helps foster understanding of linguistic code-switching and also stretches the students’ creative skills as they search for the best words to fit their rhythm and rhyme schemes, using contemporary or Shakespearean English as necessary. It also (hopefully!) helps create comfort with Shakespeare overall.
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Candice Kaup Scioscia received her Ed.M. in English education from Teachers College, Columbia University, and her M.A. in English from Rutgers University. She is currently the tutorial supervisor at Bergen Community College and teaches Writing Through Literature and Public Speaking at Berkeley College.