Regular reader and contributor Haley writes in with the following question:

I teach a high school survey course for grades 10-12.  We normally have around 10 in a class, but enrollment is creeping up.  With that bait, I’d like to campaign for a new textbook.  When we adopted new books as an English department, we didn’t get Shakespeares because they are always expensive and the ones we have are in good condition.

The first seven years were Nortons, and then were switched to Riverside second editions, which we now have.  They aren’t BAD.  But they are large, cumbersome, with Bible paper and teeny-text.

I just received–TODAY–the RSC Complete Works based on the Folio.  Just looking at the layout and skimming some intro material to the plays, it looks way more accessible for the high school crowd.  The Riverside intros are great in the academic sense, but overwhelming for teenagers so it’s never used.

Some have asked me why I don’t get individual copies of what I teach.  I don’t because it would actually cost more to by 7-8 sets of paperbacks that won’t last as long.  Also, I like having the complete works because I have flexibility in deciding "I feel like ’12th Night’!" over ‘As You Like It."

I’m intrigued by what sort of discussion this post can open up, on a number of levels.  A high school teacher with the freedom to decide which play to teach? Really?  I would have thought that was pretty firmly locked down by the curriculum gods, especially if Advanced Placement classes are in the picture. I’ve often wondered why, in the interests of keeping expense down, teachers don’t simply hit up the public domain versions available at Project Gutenberg and print up individual plays.  Are all the extras really that useful? Which parts, exactly?  The glossary and footnotes?  The summaries?  The questions at the end of each scene?  How much of that could we simulate and tack on to the existing public domain stuff?

http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Shakespeare_27s_20Thighs#1231699873 Another idea that I like, although I don’t expect to see it anytime soon.  It sounds like something out of one of those physical-challenge based reality game shows on tv, but imagine a larger than life typewriter where you have to crawl all over the keyboard and physically press the keys down with your hands to type a letter.  Now imagine a typing test, where you’re given a selection from Shakespeare and you have to copy it.  For speed and accuracy. Go. What’s the point? Why, it’s a piece of physical fitness equipment, of course (hence the thighs reference).  I threw in the “speed and accuracy” bit for myself since I could use the cardio.  But I like how the original idea adds that your prize is, in fact, a printout of what you wrote.  I’m all about the using Shakespeare as source material wherever you can. I just realized that this is a literature geek’s version of Dance Dance Revolution! :)  You know, using some of the techniques that have been invented to map the alphabet to the 9 digits of a cell phone, you could probably come up with a dance mat very similar to DDR and make this a video game.  You wouldn’t get the same quads workout but the cardio would go through the roof. I think I may go write that.

http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/shakespeare_20alarm_20clock#1056301200 Now, see, this one I love.  How about an alarm clock that wakes you up by reciting Shakespeare?  Even better, though I don’t see anyone saying it in the comments, would be if it also played appropriate quote when you hit the snooze button.

5:58…5:59….6:00 “O now be gone, more light and light it grows!” *snooze* “It was the nightingale, and not the lark, that pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear.  Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day.”

Yes, I deliberately switched up those quotes. The problem with the whole concept of, well, a concept alarm clock is that it has to be the best at so many things.  It has to be a good radio (these days, perhaps, an MP3 player).  It has to be a good clock (some people like well lit LED, some people like traditional analog, some people like large digits, some have it broadcast onto the ceiling…)  You can’t just take a single idea like “Have the alarm be Shakespeare” and have the rest just work itself out. A long time ago as part of a brainstorming exercise, myself and some other engineers were trying to dream up the perfect alarm clock.  The idea that I had was an alarm clock that immediately started reading the news to you, so you could stay in bed with your eyes closed for a few minutes while still being productive.  It would be voice controlled so you could say things like “Sports!” and have it jump to sports, skipping over Traffic.  If you said nothing it would just go through all its stories in a row, like the local news.  But unlike the local news, for any given story you might say “More” or “Pause” or “Repeat” to focus on something in particular. These days I know exactly how I’d build that, almost.  It’s basically a podcast receiver, sitting on your nightstand, with voice control.  You program it with some news/sports/local related RSS feeds, it refreshes them as fast as it can, and then it reads them to you.  At the time I saw two problems – true local news feeds were never up to date so you couldn’t get a good traffic or weather feed.  Second, you’d have to rely on text-to-speech since the freshness of the data would preclude having somebody actually record and post an audio file.  I think the first is pretty well solved at this point (Twitter, even?) but the second is still a bit tricky. Ok, you Shakespeare geeks don’t care about tech stuff like that.  The idea just brought back memories.   I may take this over to my other geeky blog and continue it there.

Where do I find this stuff?  I stumbled across a repository of “half baked ideas” where people post the start of something, and then others help them decide whether it’s a good idea, whether’s already been done, and so on.  So naturally, like I always do, I find the search button and type Shakespeare.  What do I find? Exploding Shakespeare

When I was in High School, I hated every minute of the school produced Shakespearean plays we were forced to sit through. Imagine, though, that instead of committing suicide, Romeo and Juliet blow up. Just like that. Damn, what a great play.

It does give you a sampling of the quality of ideas in the directory, but some of the commentary is pretty funny.

BOTTOM
There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisbe that will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill himself; which the ladies cannot abide. How answer you that?

SNOUT
By’r lakin, a parlous fear!

STARVELING
I believe we must leave the killing out, when all is done.

BOTTOM
Not a whit: I have a device to make all well.
*BOOM*

I see so many random Shakespeare references all day long that I’ve learned to ignore most of them.  Then again, sometimes they’re funny enough to merit a report.  Here we have a seemingly innocuous story about Verizon and Google getting together to create an iPad rival tablet.  What’s this I see in the middle of the article?

Best Case

Google’s ready to prove its tablet mettle, and Verizon wants an answer to AT&T’s iPad. It’s Shakespearean, almost, kind of! Within months, AT&T and Verizon will fall deeply in love, and commit suicide due to an easily avoidable misunderstanding. No, wait, wrong play. I wanted the one where EVERYONE FIGHTS EVERYONE, AND IT IS AWESOME.

You see, people?  Make your Shakespeare references funnier and I’ll link them more :).  I’m looking at you, Huffington Post.