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In my most recent Shakespeare class, I broached the idea of having students do recitations, and I was met with howls of protest. This is not something that all students, and unlike writing a paper, I cannot say that it necessarily teaches them a skill necessary for getting through life (a skill, to be sure, that will enhance their life, but they are not always in a place to understand that). I compromised by making this exercise optional: students could either write a conventional paper, or they can do something creative, which included acting out scenes, creating a children's pop-up book, several paintings, and an episode of the Dating Game in which yours truly, middle-aged, happily married, 2 kids, got to choose between Lady Macbeth, Lavinia, and Katherine Minola. In short, I suggest making this exercise optional, which I think will improve the average quality of the recitations and gives students something of a choice in how they are evaluated. pch David Wilson-Okamura wrote: > For the last nine years, I have made most of my students memorize > poems (or, in Shakespeare, speeches) and say them to me during office > hours. I don't repent me of that, but I have been wondering, recently, > where most of the effort goes. I think it is into memorizing. I value > that -- what started me doing this, actually, was Helen Vendler's > statement in her Sonnets book that not being able to recall a poem in > its entirety was, to her, a symptom of something missing from her > interpretation. Also, I like the intimacy of learning something "by > heart"; you can study it on a walk, in the shower, in bed with the > lights out. > > The problem with memorizing is that students don't make progress -- > not at least while I know them. There are, as we all know, techniques > for memorizing speeches and for improving one's memory, but they > really are a separate subject. What I can teach in these sessions -- > again, all of this happens during my office hours -- and always wish > that I had more time and (their) energy for, is meter. If students > came prepared to give a dramatic reading of the poem, there would be > more for us to _work_ on during office hours. We could make progress.* > Also they would be less nervous. > > I haven't tried this yet, so I don't know if it is a good idea. What I > haven't figured out yet is how to grade a reading as opposed to a > recitation. Currently, I give Cs for getting through the poem, Bs for > getting through it cleanly, and As for artistry. (Where does > interpretation fit into this? I can usually hear it in a student's > voice when he doesn't understand what he's reciting, so those are the > lines I will ask him about.) As my colleague across the hall Tom > Herron can attest, a C recitation isn't pretty to listen to! But even > so, a fair amount of work goes into it, and if nothing else the > student and I get to have a conversation, one-on-one, about a poem or > speech that he or she finds interesting. > > So much for recitations. What would be a C reading sound like? Surely, > it would need to be more than just verbalizing a sonnet on the page. > Advice? > > * Where I do see progress now: students come to the second session > much better prepared to discuss the meaning of what they have just > recited. I.e., they have looked up all the words they don't know, or > that don't _quite_ make sense. > >