Did you know reading Shakespeare excites positive brain activity?
Shakespeare Writing is a course developed Brandon Gergel and Jessie Chen, CEO of Asian Debate League. In this course, we read and discuss works by the greatest writer in the English language, William Shakespeare. Works that we have read Julius Caesar, King Lear, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Antony & Cleopatra, and The Tempest.
Skills pertinent to both debate and writing will be taught; namely, how to think critically about difficult texts and form arguments about issues raised in the text.
Students will also learn how to speak and write persuasively by studying Shakespeare’s greatest speeches.
Both close textual analysis and analytical writing help students think logically and form arguments, a useful skill in the academic, professional, and debate worlds.
These skills are what the best American universities expect to see in prospective students.
It is also a necessary skill for the new evidence-based reading and writing sections of the SAT.
According to research at the University of Liverpool, Shakespeare uses a linguistic technique known as functional shift that involves, for example using a noun to serve as a verb.
Researchers found that this technique allows the brain to understand what a word means before it understands the function of the word within a sentence. This process causes a sudden peak in brain activity and forces the brain to work backwards in order to fully understand what Shakespeare is trying to say.
Professor Neil Roberts, from the University’s Magnetic Resonance and Image Analysis Research Centre, (MARIARC), explains: “When the brain reads a grammatically incorrect sentence it registers a P600 effect – an effect which continues to last after the word that triggered it was first read.
“The brain is then forced to retrace its thinking process in order to understand what it is supposed to make of this unusual word.”
University of Liverpool. “Reading Shakespeare Has Dramatic Effect On Human Brain.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 19 December 2006. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12/061218122613.htm>.
Learning Objectives:
- Learn to read critically.
- Learn to discuss critically.
- Learn to write critically.
- Learn academic/advance vocabularies.
- Learn conventional grammar.
- Learn academic writing techniques.
- Learn to write high school level papers.
Class Details:
- Age Appropriateness: Grade 6 – 8
- Class Duration & Frequency: 2 hours, once a week
- Class Times: Tuesdays from 5:30 – 7:30 PM at Ming Yao Department Store, Zhongxiao Dunhua Station
- Payment Policy: Pay in advance and no refund
To sign up, please call ADL at 02 2876 1866 or speak with ADL staff
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