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Teaching Shakespeare to non-native speakers of English can feel like a daunting task for both students and instructors. However, Shakespeare is largely and understandably included in most undergraduate English Literature curricula, as his carefully crafted work reveals many profound details about the state of English literature, culture and politics in early modern England. Furthermore, students may feel drawn to his creative complexity, yet remain insecure or overwhelmed when approaching his work for the first time. The following seminar, as part of the series on innovative teaching at RCC, proposes the use of creative writing in the EFL (English as a Foreign Language) literature classroom. After reading and studying some sonnets by Shakespeare, the instructor will suggest different creative exercises in order to become familiar with both the language and the form of the Shakespearean sonnet in a fun and entertaining way. At the end of the seminar, students will have created their own sonnet and acquired skills for reading Shakespeare with pleasure.
Speaker: Laura de la Parra – PhD in English at Complutense University of Madrid, where she works as a research fellow and teaching assistant (FPU-MECD). She holds a BA in English from Complutense University and an MSc in Creative Writing from the University of Edinburgh. She has been a visiting researcher at Birkbeck College, University of London, and is currently a visiting Harvard University. Her current research focuses on gender and psychiatry in British and American fiction in the 1940s and ‘50s.
Sponsor: RCC