Just learned I'm "famous" because I am quoted in a bunch of crazy articles about how awful it is that English teachers aren't teaching Shakespeare. This will be a great example to use in class to show students how bias and truncated quotes change the meaning of source material.

The articles, which are in the NY Post, the Daily Mail, and a million other places, all get their info from @CiteSomething's fantastic @sljournal article. https://www.slj.com/?detailStory=to-teach-or-not-to-teach-is-shakespeare-still-relevant-to-todays-students-libraries-classic-literature-canon

Here's my original quote, the title of one of the reaction articles, and the truncated quote in most of the reaction articles. This will be a great example in our research unit! (I'm not linking to any of the ridiculousness, but if you google my name + Shakespeare you can see).

I learned about my newfound "fame" when a former colleague let me know that someone reached out to someone she knows because they were horrified to learn a local teacher refuses to teach Shakespeare. Someone better tell my students they aren't reading Shakespeare! lol.

My reaction here is mostly tongue-in-cheek and it's not a big deal to me, but lord are some media outlets terrible. There are teachers who could be destroyed by articles like this.

Oh, and for the millionth time, the world will not end if students don't read Shakespeare. I have news for the pearl-clutchers: most kids don't read Shakespeare even when it is assigned. I would bet most of the pearl-clutchers fake read Shakespeare.

Shakespeare is great, but there are lots of great pieces of literature for kids to read. Not teaching Shakespeare is great! Read relevant literature with students! If that means making Shakespeare relevant that's great! If that means reading contemporary works? Awesome!

Oh, and here’s what I focus on when my students study Romeo and Juliet: adolescent brain development; violence and toxic masculinity; and juvenile justice. I pair R+J with Antigone, excerpts from Just Mercy, and current op-eds. It’s awesome and my students dig deep into R+J.