Participants will study and discuss the value of using contemporary texts as a way to read or re-read classical literature. Participants will also develop ways to incorporate more contemporary texts into their curriculum to accompany traditional literary works. Increasingly driven by the Common Core and standardized tests to compare and contrast central ideas and themes, such pairings of contemporary and classic provide new opportunities for insight, innovative writing and discussion.

Participants will read/view and reflect on a selection of contemporary multimedia pieces tied thematically to classical texts, accompanied by readings from the classical texts themselves.  In online discussions and reflections, participants will explore and share strategies for integrating the contemporary with the classical in their own high school classrooms.  The hope is to make course participants more comfortable with creating their own juxtapositions with the classical texts they teach, increasing their relevance to teens today.

Required Text: 

Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. Ed. Peter G. Beidler. New York: Bantam, 2006. Print.

Heaney, Seamus, trans. Beowulf. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1999. Print.

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Location: Online

Framingham State University - 3 Graduate Credits