Friday, October 28, 2011

Sharing and Contributing Locally and Globally

In my Shakespeare class we were given the assignment to share what we are learning both locally and globally. Meaning we are to reach out to those near us and also to the world, perhaps on the internet. Here is my experience with both.

Sharing Locally: Jeff

Well, I thought a lot about who I could share with. Hoping not to be the guy who just talked to his room mate. I tried to think of ways to bring Othello into my home teaching, or maybe the Sunday School class I get to teach. With my job I also have the opportunity to have groups of people listen to me talk and teach all day and I tried really hard to think of relevant ways to bring in Shakespeare. In the end I, without meaning to, ended up being the guy who talked to his room mate.
Jeff and I on the Mission

I have a room mate, Jeff, that I have known for years. We met on the mission and are really good friends. We have a kind of teasing relationship, always playfully arguing with each other. He doesn't understand why I love art, I don't understand why he is being so narrow minded, that kind of thing. With the confession of my love for Shakespeare he found something else to tease me about. Why, Mason, do you draw emo pictures of Shakespeare? Why do you love stories where everyone dies? Why do you care what a long dead man wrote? etc. etc.

As we discuss this I have seen a change in Jeff that I don't see often, due to our constant teasing. He has started to agree with me. It all started with Grassroots Shakespeare Macbeth, a fantastic production. I convinced him to come and he loved it. He told me he has never thought Shakespeare could be so much fun. We had a lengthy discussion about it afterwards. He told me he that before thought Shakespeare was stuffy and boring.

Through our talks about what I'm learning I was able to convince Jeff to even come on a quest with me to locate the DVD for the 2010 production of The Tempest. We failed, it took an hour and a half and we had no   success. Yesterday I came home and Jeff informed me that all of his own he had tried to sign up next semester for a Shakespeare class. That was cool, to see how he is starting to love this thing that I love too.

I didn't want to be the guy who talked to his room mate, but I am just really happy to see how my unintentional sharing of what I'm learning has changed my room mates view. Way to go Jeff.

Sharing Globally: Blogs 


A few posts ago I mentioned how I posted on someones blog about Othello and the Bible. I think my post was relevant but it seems like it didn't make it past the review stage and was not officially put on the blog. I'm a little hurt about this but I have learned and since moved on.

I looked for other things people had to say about the world of Othello and found two very interesting blogs. One talks about a production of the play in Washington D.C. and it mentioned some things that I thought were interesting, like the use of the handkerchief in their production which was something I had not thought much about. I posted a comment to them about that, I'm still waiting to hear back, hopefully they won't delete it.

Another blog I found had a post from today even, and explained differences between publications of the play and how this might influence the depiction of the characters. I thought this was very interesting as well because I love the way Othello is shown and his transformation through the play. I commented on this as well and still, have yet to hear back.

No comments:

Post a Comment