Monday, March 17, 2014

Final Point 5: The First Annotation

After a lot of work and a few laughs, the Spear Shakers are proud to present our first annotation of The Tempest.  We've made our annotation of  Act III, Scene 1.  Following this link will lead to a PDF format made available for your viewing pleasure.  We recognize that our particular scene is not a full 250 lines, but the entirety of Act III is well over that number.  When we selected Act III, we did it on the basis of what we thought would make a good sample of our edition would be and what high school students would be able to best connect to.     

What We've Done:


Our edition is for high school students who are experiencing their first exposure to Shakespeare.  Ideally, we would love to see The Tempest, specifically our edition, become the new Romeo and Juliet.  We felt as a group that there were a lot of situations and character aspects in The Tempest that high school students could relate to and engage with.


With that in mind, we have tried to include lot of critical thinking questions and supplementary activities that students and their teachers could use to build a deeper engagement with the text.  We want to help students think about what they're reading, and build relationships between themselves, the text, and the real world.

In addition, we want to use our addition to help introduce students to the idea of the critical conversation and literary discussion.  We want to introduce students to the many, many different ways that scholars can analyze a text.  For this reason, we included an abridged version of the essay "Understanding The Tempest" by Robert B. Pierce as an overall introduction to our edition.  We thought Pierce did an excellent job of talking about how scholars talk and think about literature, and we wanted our students to see what that discussion looks like as told by someone who participates in it firsthand.  To further help students explore the many ways of reading a piece of literature, we have assigned a different critical lens to each of the five acts of The Tempest.  In consideration of the plot points and dialogue that occur in Act III, we felt that having students consider themes of gender and sexuality would help facilitate meaningful discussion of the play.  As a means of introducing this critical lens to students, we introduce the act with a synthesis of gender and sexuality essays from scholars.  Presumably in the rest of our edition, each act would be introduced in a similar way with essays that relate to each of the different lenses we selected for the acts.

As we prepared the actual text, we tried to stay as true as possible to the Folio version.  We want students to be challenged a little in order for them to build new vocabulary and higher reading skills.  We recognize though, that Shakespeare can be tricky for a first time reader to understand, so we chose to include a brief scene summary before each scene to help students follow the general plot and action of the scene. In our margins, we gave definitions for more archaic or higher-level vocabulary words, and added clarifying translations and explanatory notes in our annotations as well in places we felt students might need additional help understanding the language or figures of speech that were more unusual.  We also included a few critical thinking questions in the margins in places where we wanted the students to stop and think more deeply about what they are reading.   


What We're Planning on Doing:

  • Add an brief biography on Shakespeare either as an introductory note or as additional information at the end of the play
  • Annotate the other two scenes of Act III in a similar manner to the work we've done on Scene 1, including post-scene activity questions for each and marginal critical thinking questions.
  • Fine-tune definitions, questions, and essays throughout as needed
  • Formalize the bibliography for the sources quoted and referenced  
  • Integrate peer-reviews and feedback

What We're Thinking About Doing
  • Add a further introduction to the critical conversation besides Robert Pierce's abridged essay
    • Define a few words in the introduction, and maybe add an explanatory heading. E.g. In this edition of The Tempest, we talk a lot about “critical commentary,” or different, thoughtful ways of seeing the play. In this reading, Robert B. Pierce explains why it’s important to look at the play’s contents from different points of view. We hope getting the answer to that questions of “What’s the point to all this extra stuff?” will help you enjoy the play more and get more out of the “extra stuff.”
  • Play with our formatting in regards to font and type-set
  • Add some kind of post-play materials or list of resources, maybe even include the full versions of the essays we adapted and abridged for our edition.

Running List of Sources Cited or Referenced


*All definitions given were consulted with the Oxford English Dictionary

Graff, Gerald and James Phelan, ed. The Tempest. 2nd ed. New York: Bedford/St. Martins, 2009. Print.

Lee, Michelle, ed. "The Tempest." Shakespearean Criticism. 124. (2009): 256-350. Web. 27 Feb. 2014. Loomba, Ania. “From Gender, race, Renaissance Drama.” The Tempest: A Case Study in Critical Controversy. 2nd ed. Ed. Gerald Graff and James Phelan. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2009. 389-401. Print.

Pierce, Robert B. “Understanding The Tempest.” New Literary History 30.2 (1999): 373-388. Project Muse. Web. 25 February 2014.

Slights, Jessica “Rape and the Romanticization of Shakespeare's Miranda.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 41.2 (2001): 357-379. Web. 27 Feb. 2014.

Thompson, Ann. “‘Miranda, Where’s Your Sister?”: Reading Shakespeare’s The Tempest”. The Tempest: A Case Study in Critical Controversy. 2nd ed. Ed. Gerald Graff and James Phelan. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2009. 402-412. Print.

4 comments:

  1. I have to say that it is really hard to find anything to improve in your edition, you guys have done really a great job! Unfortunately the class requires me to try to be picky, so i'll try to the best of my capabilities to not only praise you for the good work, but also give you a few suggestions too.
    I will comment on your introduction and your choice of including Robert Pierce's essay.
    I think your edition's introduction is very well done, it gives the readers a very good understanding of what your edition will include, and how it will help them understanding better not only the play, but also the whole concept around "critical commentary". I think this is a very important subject to explain, and i think the essay that you have chosen to explain it, it's a very good one. If i would have to give you a couple of suggestions on the matter, it would be to :
    1- Make the subject a little bit more your own. Choosing an essay it's a good idea, but maybe you should also think on how to explain it in your own words. The essay was certainly fun to read and quite clear, but i felt a little bit lost in the middle, because the point was not explained in such a clear way that a high school student would understand. I think i can be a good example of that, because as a foreigner reading the essay, having another mother tongue other than English, i'm probably at high school level when it comes to understanding an essay, at least on first reading. High school students are not really prone to read things twice, unless they really love the subject, so i think the essay should be clear on first reading, so maybe adding a little bit of your own explanation on "critical commentary", or maybe just explaining clearly and briefly about what Pierce was talking about, it will help the students a lot. I like the idea of the questions at the end, they are an amazing tool, for both the students and the teacher, to think about what they read in a deeper level.
    Another suggestion is that you should consider comparing your edition to other editions, and explaining in detail while your edition should be trusted. What makes you edition different from the other editions? Why should they pick your edition instead of the others? What are you offering than others are not offering? Explaining about the critical part of your edition is great, but you should explain why you chose the themes that you have chosen, and how different your interpretation is from the other editions of the play.Your essay explains about how critical commentary can really be anything and can be different coming from different people, so explaining how different your own critical commentary is, will help them understand the subject even more. The same goes for the editing part, what did you do with the editing that the other editions didn't do? Remember, you are trying to sell your edition.
    I think these couple of points are worth enough to think about.
    Other than that, great job guys :)
    My other groupmates will comment more about the other sections of your editions.

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  2. Editing for the Text of the Play - The edited text of the play is pretty good. The formatting is nice and clean and the colors are a great addition. The stage directions are well done. The paragraph at the beginning of the play needs to be labeled as an editor’s note or have the author’s name put after it. Color coding your notes, translations, and definitions is also a good idea, but it could be altered to make it even better. I think it would be better to have the word being defined highlighted in red so that the eye goes immediately to the matching word instead of the matching color. Right now readers still have to count which definition they’re on instead of finding the right word right away. You could cut out the definition labels entirely and leave more room for the actual definitions. The side notes should also be realigned to be right across from the lines that they comment on.

    Page 1
    Line 12 Side note - This note could be shortened and it has a grammatical error. “Does” should be “done.”

    Page 2
    Line 31 Side note - Why would it be a dishonour for Miranda to work?
    Line 35 Side note - Fernando said that he wanted to do the work. What exactly does Miranda mean by using the words “good will?”
    Questions - These are good questions to ask, but placing them in the side notes disrupts the flow of the text. They would be more useful at the end of the scene.
    Q1 - It isn’t safe to assume that Prospero is only talking about Miranda. He could be talking about Fernando, or about them both.

    Page 3
    Line 50 Side note - This note explains the text underneath it, not the text that’s highlighted. It would be better if the note were moved down and the language of the highlighted portion explained with a yellow translation.

    Page 4
    LIne 85 - It should be “the.”
    Line 91 - There needs to be a hard return after line 91 and then to avoid a widow on the next page Ferdinand’s last line can be moved down.

    Overall you guys have done a pretty good job. :)

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  3. Scene 1: Questions and Activities
    My comments below follow the numbering of your questions.
    1. The idea of having students write about how the story would differ without Miranda is a good one. It will make the students stretch and embrace the text. That being said, mentioning another story and it’s outline is confusing and difficult. If the students haven’t read that sotry, it could be a confusing task. Maybe add a selection of that piece in the edition. Also, this book is for a younger audience than high school students.
    2. This idea is a really good one!
    3. This question is a confusing and strange one as well. switching up ALL of the genders would cause a completely different story. Not only would Miranda end up being a son but Prospero would be a girl. Both of these would change the sotry.
    4. Again, I think switching all of the genders would be too difficult. Maybe focus on one character.
    5. I think this is a good idea as well. a unique way to engage the students with the personality of Miranda and the text itself.
    6. I like this idea for the most part. The journal entry is a nice idea, connecting the student to the character again. But the part about changing what they think the character should have done is a little unimportant. The idea of changing this would change the outcome of the story and not teach the students.
    7. This idea is almost exactly the same as number six. Why do you want to focus on changing the scene? What does this do for the students? What does it teach them? Don’t you want them to learn from the text and engage in Shakespeare’s writings?
    8. I like the idea of connecting to the students’ own lives but I don’t understand the point of having the student’s write about what they would do differently. Is it to teach them about who they are and help them gain understanding of their own personality? Maybe talk more about that.

    I like that you chose to add these activities and questions to help the students engage with the play. I think they need to be thought out a little bit more but are great starting points!

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  4. Your critical essay is solid. Personally, I feel like the role of women in the play is a very weak and thinly spread way to look at "The Tempest". Women are nearly non-existent. Miranda clearly has the greatest influence, but that comes mostly by way of being manipulated. She is an object to be desired, little more. And while you do cover this angle, you also site sources calling her a heroine and protagonist, which is a stretch at best. Using words like protagonist and heroine to describe Miranda seem strained. High Schoolers are still trying to grasp the meanings of these literary terms and typically will not have fluency with them. By applying such strong words to such a weak character the terms can be diluted.

    Sycorax is being way overblown by the critic you use. For example, I find very little evidence that Prospero ever feared or respected her. His calling her a witch can mean all kinds of things. The OED lists more than 100 definitions of "witch". In talking about Sycorax as such a powerful character you are setting your readers up for serious disappointment. They will be expecting a powerful witch who at the very least hangs ominously over the text in memory. Instead, they will find her mentioned a hand full of times and then entirely forgotten.

    You essay is short, and that is good. I love the way in which you define difficult words within the text. I think that you can even do more of that. My concern is that you have chosen a critical angle that is extremely easy to see through and disregard. Every argument is a huge assumption of things unsupported by the text. As such, it is uninteresting (obviously some would disagree) to think about the play in these wildly speculative ways.

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