First entry 2 weeks in...yup, this must be my blog

7/19/2008-

OK, so time for some background info. I am a 28 year old English teacher from Pylesville Maryland. My school has corn, cows and its own barn. It has a tractor day. Yet here I find myself leaving my flannel-clad town behind and spending the entire month of July in downtown Washington, DC. Wait, what? Yeah, I'm in the big city.

So why am I here? Back in March, I applied to the Folger Shakespeare Library's Teaching Shakespeare Institute. I never thought that I would get accepted, but it was one of those "if I don't at least try, I'll regret it later" moments. I sent off the materials and waited patiently for my rejection letter to arrive (on, of all days, April 1st). I didn't get a rejection letter. I got an acceptance phone call (during a tennis match that I was coaching. Tennis is a good place to get news like that, because tennis kids are usually dorky enough to appreciate my excitement over the news).

Fast forward a few months. On August 6th, I arrived at Georgetown with my suitcase, my computer and a small library of books in my arms. They suggested that we keep a blog as we go. Today, two weeks into my four week experience, I took the plunge.

The first week was extremely fun. The Institute is focused on three components: scholarship, curriculum development, and acting. We are studying four plays altogether (Much Ado About Nothing, Taming of the Shrew, Richard III and King Lear). Each play gets a week to itself, though we do often turn down tangent road (Gotta love that Merchant of Venice, Hey nonny nonny?). We start each day with free coffee and a lecture from some of the best Shakespearean scholars on the planet. It is so interesting to hear a lecture from so many sources on the same play. It truly drives home the point that you can interpret Shakespeare's work in any number of ways. On top of the academic intrigue, the reality of where we are for these lectures is equally as fun. We spend half of our time in the theater of the Folger (a mock up of the Globe). We walk past a first folio every morning. We eat lunch surrounded by paintings that are 300-400 years old. Most of us are in a state of total nerdgasm.

The other two components are designed around learning how to act in order to create performance pedagogy. I've been having a lot of fun with the curriculum while living in terror of the acting (nothing personal Caleen- I'm love theater...from the vantage point of the audience, not the stage).

The first two weeks we worked on Taming of the Shrew and Much Ado About Nothing. I've never been as interested in the Comedies, having only read a handful of them. This first two weeks changed that. By watching the scholars deliver their papers, I was able to figure out how to investigate the Comedy genre. Rather than view it as an absurdity due to the plot, I have begun looking at both Taming and Much Ado as puzzles and pieces of ambiguous art (the ambiguously play duo?)


Next week we move into Richard III (my favorite of the four before the TSI). We will also be finalizing our own research papers (more on the assignments and my progress/lack thereof later).

On to the people. I had no idea what to expect when I came down to DC. I've only been teaching for three years. I was worried that everyone else was going to have a combined 800 billion years of teaching experience next to me. While most of the rest of the group DOES have plenty more time in the classroom, my roommate (another sarcastic guy) just finished his first year. We end up awake half the night discussing the literature, teaching in general and other ideas. It's a good thing the coffee is free.

There is MUCH more to discuss about the social end of TSI 2008, but hey, I have to leave something for blog post number 2, right?

If anyone actually reads this, these are possible topics to be included in the next blog. Comment and tell me which ones sound most interesting to you.

Pushup counting, word of the day, cuckold, Albert's hats, Joel's great rare book theft (foiled), Anti-Shakespearean attitudes at 550 feet, A two day break to reunite with a bunch of Dicks, graduate school, My county and Shakespeare.

See you next time (which, I'm sure, will probably be two weeks from now, but I'll try to be good. :) )

Scott