Comment on Mitochondria

• captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  I’m unconvinced that Shakespeare is a particularly good exercise in reading comprehension given the vocabulary, phraseology, spelling and grammar is 500 years out of date.

  I remember reading Hamlet out loud in class, and that was the last of the plays we studied so we had read some Shakespeare before, and every other thing you’re running into a sentence that doesn’t work or a word that is NEVER said except in Hamlet like 'contumely" or ‘orisons’ and you just get a room full of teenagers saying words one by one taking none of it on board.

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  • Fredthefishlord@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    If anything, learning to understand words from a text without knowing their definition makes it better for that

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  • Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    I’m unconvinced that Shakespeare is a particularly good exercise in reading comprehension given the vocabulary, phraseology, spelling and grammar is 500 years out of date.

    Hrm I’d argue that regardless of the parlance used in the work, it’s still an exercise of reading comprehension, as one is still comprehending the work while reading it.

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    • captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      as one is still comprehending the work while reading it.

      Especially in something like Shakespeare’s case I don’t think that’s necessarily true, because 1. a lot of the vocabulary is just…not English anymore. Let me ask you: what part of speech is the word “contumely”? Is it a noun? An adverb? An adjective? 2. Not all of the information is there. Shakespeare only ever wrote down the dialog not the stage directions because he told that stuff to his actors in person. Comprehending the play by reading the dialog alone is difficult because the context is missing.

      The gravedigger in Hamlet is in the habit of saying “argal.” Because he heard someone literate say “ergo” and he uses it right, as a synonym of “therefore” but he doesn’t pronounce it right. It’s an interesting bit of characterization because it shows the gravedigger maybe should have had a chance at some school. I realized this watching the Kenneth Branaugh production years later when I found it in an old stack of VHS tapes, not in 12th grade listening to my classmate Jeremy try to read it without having it explained to him first. He kept pronouncing it “ARgul” rather than “arGALL” so he never heard himself say the joke.

      Perhaps my English teacher could have done a better job conducting this lesson but was this really a useful exercise in reading comprehension?

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      • Don_alForno@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        not in 12th grade listening to my classmate Jeremy try to read it without having it explained to him first. He kept pronouncing it “ARgul” rather than “arGALL” so he never heard himself say the joke.

        Perhaps my English teacher could have done a better job conducting this lesson but was this really a useful exercise in reading comprehension?

        My money is on your teacher not knowing the joke either.

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      • Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        […] I don’t think that’s necessarily true, because 1. a lot of the vocabulary is just…not English anymore. […] Comprehending the play by reading the dialog alone is difficult because the context is missing. […]

        I think you may be missing the point that I was trying to make. I agree with you that I think Shakespeare can be difficult to read, but, regardless of that, trying to comprehend it is still trying to comprehend it. If one is practicing their reading comprehension, no matter the difficulty of the material, imo it could still be said that they are improving their comprehension. Now, it could be that there is material that is more efficient at improving one’s reading comprehension ability than Shakespeare, but I think that’s a separate argument.

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  • fsxylo@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    I’d argue it does the opposite for literacy. You tell some teenager with a third grade reading level to read “thou prithy foresooth bout thy they thou thumb” and they are going to completely check out.

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    • captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      “Man, I can’t do this.”

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