What the Edutopia Community Taught Me About Teaching Shakespeare

The name Shakespeare elicits many different reactions from readers. I’ve heard excitement (“Romeo and Juliet, like the Taylor Swift song!”) and lots of dread (“It’s too hard”). The overarching sentiment is that William Shakespeare’s work is old. Shakespeare can feel distant from students’ lives, leading people to question his relevance.

I love Shakespeare so much that, besides teaching his plays, my upcoming English PhD dissertation will be about Shakespeare’s work. While I love Shakespeare as a scholar, I have a complicated relationship with him as an educator. I firmly believe that the current canon many teachers use isn’t as diverse as it should be. At times, this has caused me to rethink whether I should teach Shakespeare: I choose to study his work, but is he still essential in an education system that has often over-prioritized white male voices?

Two arguments to justify Shakespeare—his language is beautiful, or his work is timeless—also don’t sit right with me. Many authors employ complex and beautiful language (Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Toni Morrison, Joy Harjo) that share often under-taught perspectives with students. Also, Shakespeare’s work is quite time-bound: He directly responded to social, cultural, and environmental events. To dehistoricize his writing flattens it in problematic and, frankly, less interesting ways. Many texts explore young love, but A Midsummer Night’s Dream does so while also commenting on British Imperialism—a fascinating combination.

Are 400-year-old plays still relevant? I have my beliefs, but I wanted to reach a broader audience to understand his appeal. Edutopia asked the community this question, and the response garnered rich conversation (something Bard advocates would say is a sign of his continued relevance). Here are some insights about why people still teach Shakespeare.

The human condition is timeless

I’ve argued that Shakespeare’s ability to respond to the events of his era, like the Little Ice Age, makes his work powerful. While historical context is key to his work, the relationships and personal dilemmas he explores span time. Some teachers reframed this argument to say that it’s not that his work is timeless so much as it shows how everyday human experiences transcend time and also shift between cultures. This concept allows conversations about how other cultures or periods react to situations we still experience today. It reminds us that, as one educator said, “people have always used artistic expression to comment on the world.”

If we don’t frame his work in universality—which diminishes the cultural responsiveness of Shakespeare’s work—we can focus on the connection rooted in history. This concept is something that scholar Spencer Oshita calls “transtemporal” (in the comments on Facebook); he says, “Discovering that centuries of people turned to these same words and stories to draw their own conclusions and pull their inspirations contributes to a sense that we are not, and have never been, alone, even in the depths of our most dramatic despair.”

Cultural Capital Exists

One of the most common arguments for teaching Shakespeare today is that he has “cultural capital”—understanding his work gives students capital to navigate Western culture. Because his work is referenced in so many works, from The Lion King to Brave New World to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (a personal favorite), this exposure allows students to connect references made by other authors.

Of course, it’s important to note that the phrase “cultural capital” means preferring a culture that prioritizes certain voices. Even Shakespeare scholar Ayanna Thompson notes that the idea of students being at a “disadvantage” if they don’t read Shakespeare is “framed on an older colonial/imperial model. A true disadvantage is not knowing how to read, understand, analyze, and grapple with the cultural or political contexts of any piece of literature.”

I agree with Thompson. I also recognize that Shakespeare is the only author required in the Common Core English standards and is among the most commonly taught authors. Thus, balancing meaningful exposure to his work while questioning his ideas and merit gives students the tools to make essential connections in their academic careers.

Shakespeare Used His Pop Culture to Craft Plays

I happily discovered teachers who noted how often Shakespeare remixed or reimagined other people’s stories. Romeo and Juliet is a retelling of The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet, by Arthur Brooke, and Othello is a reworking of Giovanni Battista Giraldi Cinthio’s novella Gli Hecatommithi. As one Edutopia commenter noted, “Shakespeare borrowed from sources… Greek and Roman classics (Plutarch’s Lives), English history (Holinshed’s Chronicles), Italian novellas, and British folklore.

What makes him stand out is how he reimagined those stories, adding depth, complexity, and themes that were modern to his time but still resonate. It’s not so different from how fan fiction writers take existing characters or worlds and reshape them, or how musicians remix classic songs to create something new and meaningful for modern audiences.”

I love this take for two reasons: First, it’s a fascinating frame with which to consider Shakespeare. What if we help students think of Shakespeare’s works as the fan fiction of his time? Second, it ends Shakespeare worship. When we humanize Shakespeare, we allow students to engage with his work more meaningfully (as in the Folger Method), and students can engage more meaningfully than if we keep him on a venerated, distant pedestal above all other writing.

Bawdy Jokes are Fun (and Important)

Many teachers appreciate the bawdy, indelicate jokes and storylines that Shakespeare offers as much as I do. While some of Shakespeare’s writing is elevated and beautiful, watching students understand his really crude and lowbrow jokes in elevated language is entertaining. When students see, as one commenter noted, the “juxtaposition of the guy making meme jokes… in iambic pentameter [it’s] another level of amusing.” These jokes aren’t only amusing, they also take Shakespeare off the pedestal, making his work feel more relatable. Why did Shakespeare write for a wide range of audiences and tastes? Why mix highbrow and lowbrow humor? These discussions ground Shakespeare’s work in a real-world context that makes his craft more engaging.

Resource Gaps Are Real

A few teachers noted a vital teaching reality: availability of resources. There are many well-designed and often free resources for Shakespeare’s most commonly taught plays, and the texts are free. This abundance of resources makes teaching them much easier on educators, who are often strapped for time. It also means that teachers can build on interesting interdisciplinary ideas, like seeking science in Macbeth or writing historical diary entries, since these texts have broader exposure.

So, while it’s important to acknowledge the systemic reasons why Shakespeare has so many resources, it’s also essential to recognize that having access to high-quality resources is helpful for teachers. Continuing to teach Shakespeare in thoughtful and critical ways means we build on the great scholarship surrounding his work while also maintaining an ability to critique it.

I’m immensely grateful to the Edutopia community for sharing their insights. While reading through these numerous thoughtful responses, I was reminded that as great a writer as he was, Shakespeare also collaborated on several of his works (including Pericles, which was immensely popular in its time) to make deeper connections to his audience. This moment served as another lesson from the Bard: We do not live in a vacuum, but instead, we can write about and with those around us to create something powerful, provocative, and, hopefully, a little fun too.