Question 1:
Newstok relies on/represents several other writers’ ideas in order to demonstrate how we might “think like Shakespeare.” Start by making a list of ALL the sources he mentions. Remember, he may have quoted them directly, paraphrased their ideas, referred to them as individuals or named them by the group they represent.
Answer:
A list of sources Newstok references:
- 2001 No Child Left Behind Act (p. 1)
- Martin Luther King Jr. (p. 2)
- National Education Association (p. 2)
- Partnership for 21st Century Learning (p. 2)
- Shakespeare (p. 2, 3, 4
- Renaissance students and educators (p. 2-4, 6-7)
- Tudor students (p. 3)
- Antonio Gramsci (p. 3)
- Olympic athletes (p. 3)
- Professional musicians (p. 3)
- Greeks (p. 3)
- Michel de Montaigne (p. 3)
- John Coltrane (p. 4)
- Neoliberal reformers, politicians (p. 4)
- Elena Ferrante (p. 4)
- Hanna Arendt (p. 5)
- Seneca (p. 5)
- Lucretius (p, 5)
- Ovid (p. 5)
- John Keats (p. 5)
- Zadie Smith (p. 5+6)
- Apple (company) (p. 6)
- Abraham Flexner (p. 6)
- Mary Carruthers (p. 6)
- Bart Van Es (p. 7)
- Researchers (p. 7)
- Lynn Enterline (p. 7)
- Christopher Grubb (former student) (p. 7)
- Francis Bacon (p. 8)
- The Latin language and curriculum (p. 4, 5, 8).
Question 2:
Look up any of the people whose names you don’t recognize. Are these people dead/alive? Which academic disciplines do they speak from?
Answer:
Antonio Gramsci – Gramsci was born January 22, 1891, in Ales, Sardinia, and died April 27, 1937 at 46 years old in Rome, Italy. He was an Italian Marxist writer and politician who wrote on philosophy, sociology, linguistics, history and political theory. Eventually he broke from the traditional Marxists and is so a neo-Marxist. He was a found member and one-time leader of the Communist party and was later imprisoned and know for his jail journals. He studied at the University of Turin and read literature, also taking an interest in linguistics, and was later a notable journalist.
Michel de Montaigne – Montaigne was born September 13, 1533 in Chateau de Montaigne, Kingdom of France, and died there in 1592 at 59 years old. He was also known as Lord Montaigne. He was one of the most significant philosophers of the French Renaissance, popularizing the essay as a literary genre. His work merges casual anecdotes, autobiography and intellectual insight.
Elana Ferrante – Ferrante is alive today and is in Italian novelist whose true identity remains anonymous. Her books are originally written in Latin, but have been translated to numerous languages. Her most widely known works are the four-book series of Neapolitan Novels.
Hanna Arendt – Arendt was alive from October 14, 1906 in the German empire to December 4, 1975 in New York City. She was a German-American political thinker whose books have had lasted influence on political philosophy and theory. Considered one of the most important political thinkers of the 20th century.
John Keats – Keats were born October 31, 1795 in Moorgate, London, England and died February 23, 1821 in Rome, Papal states at age 25. He was one of the main figures of the second generation of Romantic poets. Today his poems and letters are among the most popular and most analyzed in English literature. Some of his most acclaimed works are “Ode to a Nightingale,” “Sleep and Poetry,” and “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer.
Zadie Smith – Smith is alive today and is an English novelist, essayist, and short-story writer. Her debut novel, White Teeth, became a best-seller and won several awards. She is a professor in the Creativity Writing faculty of New York University since 2010.
Abraham Flexner – Flexner was born on November 13, 1866 in Louisville, Kentucky and died September 21, 1959 at 92 years old in Falls Church, Virginia. He is best known for his role in the reform of medical and higher education in the 20th century of the United States and Canada. He published The American College: A Criticism that got the attention of the Carnegie Foundation to investigate medical schools in the United States and Canada.
Mary Carruthers – Carruthers is alive today and is the Erich Maria Remarque Professor of Literature and Professor of English, emerita, at New York University. She also teaches at the New York University Abu Dhabi, and formerly a professor at Case Western Reserve University and the University of Illinois. She writes of medieval literature and rhetoric, the history of spirituality and memory techniques.
Bart Van Es – Van Es was born in the Netherlands and is still alive today. He is a literary critic and writer and professor of English at the University of Oxford. He studied English at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge and gained his doctorate at Cambridge.
Lynn Enterline – Enterline is alive today and researches modern literature and culture where she investigates connection among histories of sexuality, rhetoric, and emotion in the English, Latin, Green, and Italian traditions.
Question 3:
Next pay attention to the particular work each does for Newstok. Why might he have chosen that particular speaker to help him make a given point?
Answer:
Antonio Gramsci – In paragraph nine, page three, Newstok introduces his main purpose – addressing how one can “think like Shakespeare” by using the rigid learning techniques utilized in the Renaissance. Newstok references his description of education with a direct quote, highlighting why “mechanical discipline” and “disciplined and methodical acts” help to instill certain necessary habits that yield analytical readers and thinkers. Gramsci was known for writing about topics of philosophy and sociology, and is a well-known writer and attended University. Newstok utilizes this quote from Gramsci to back his argument on the benefits of the techniques of Renaissance learning, and to support his argument with a well-acclaimed writer of a past time.
Michel de Montaigne – Towards the end of page three, Newstok explores the meaning of “imitation” for Renaissance thinkers, who look to Seneca, who looked to the Greeks to compare the process of imitation to a bee’s gathering of nectar and transforming it to honey. Montaigne directly addresses this comparison and explains it for Newstok so the audience will further understand it. Montaigne has worthy insight on the topic since he was born and lived in the 16th century – during the Renaissance, and holds credibility as one of the most significant philosophers of the French Renaissance.
Elana Ferrante – Newstok utilizes a quote from Ferrante on the last paragraph of page four, where he describes having an inventory of knowledge, and without it, creating more knowledge is extremely difficult. Her quote fits in with a metaphor, referring to this prior knowledge as “the fruit of tradition,” thus provoking deep reading in the reader and creativity to the point Newstok was trying to make.
Hanna Arendt – Newstok utilizes a quote from Arendt in the first paragraph of page five to extend the thoughts of Ferrante. As Ferrante said, “‘There is no work… that is not the fruit of tradition.'” Arendt’s quote builds off this idea, where she says that education “… must proceed in a world that is neither structured by authority nor held together by tradition.'” Thus, Newstok skillfully brings in Arendts quote to extend the idea of Ferrante.
John Keats – Keats was a famous poet, known for his romance poems. Newstok brings in his idea of “‘negative capability'” on page five to look at the idea of “‘critical thinking'” in a new light. Utilizing Keats artistic ability to craft new phrases from simpler ideas, as a poet, allows Newstok to engage the reader in a new way of thinking about a phrase that has been previously engrained in their memory.
Zadie Smith – At the end of age 5 and the beginning of page 6, Newstok references Smith as she marvels at Shakespeares open-mindedness and ability to look at two sides, further supporting his argument that we should all learn to “think like Shakespeare.”
Mary Carruthers and Abraham Flexner – see last question.
Bart Van Es – Bart Van Es is referenced at the top of page seven. He wrote a book titled “Shakespeare in Company,” where he examines multiple playwright-poets, including Shakespeare, which is why Newstok inserted this quote whilst discussing Shakespeares success in picking specific actors for his plays. Bart Van Es is a credible source as he wrote a book that focused solely on examining the techniques of these playwrights.
Lynn Enterline – On the second paragraph of page seven, Newstock examines the development of Shakespeares character, and references Enterlines work on character making to support the more specific references to Shakespeare in a broader sense.
Question 4:
Now attend to the way Newstok anticipates questions, objections, or other perspectives about his claims, or even about the way he characterizes education. Did you have any of these questions? What would you add to the list of things Newstok ought to consider?
Answer:
Newstok addresses the difficulty of building a bridge from the 16th century way of education to the modern education system by breaking apart its components and describing the skills in which students in those years obtained through their strict school regimen. He poses the question: “Could there be a system more antithetical to our own contemporary ideals of student-centered, present-focused, and career-orientated education?” (para. 6). He also questions progressive educators and neoliberal reformers and the soundness of their ideas of our education (para. 4). It is true, the career-focused, student-centered modern way of education is completely antithetical to the methods used in the 16th century. I had the same question, worded differently. Essentially, what are we doing wrong? Should we not be focusing on personalization for the student so much? And, for further inquiry: is it the system that has failed the students, the teaching mechanism, or the students’ own lack of motivation? How detrimental is this system – and the effect of the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act – to students and their future, and how can it be changed?
Question 5:
Finally, choose a quotation from the convocation address and write a paragraph in which you set up that passage, quote it, follow with a comment about the quotation, and end with an open-ended question you’d want to discuss. (You’ll be doing this when you use the double-entry format of note-taking)
Answer:
Throughout his convocation address, Newstok references many scholars and credible sources to support his argument. Each come from a variance of backgrounds weaved skillfully into paragraphs. On page six, paragraph 22, Newstok references Abraham Flexner, who led the reform of medical colleges and the education system in which they were utilizing:
“In short, the best way for you to prepare for the unforeseen future is to learn how to think intensively and imaginatively. Abraham Flexner, a legendary reformer of American medical education, was adamant about the ‘usefulness of useless knowledge.’ According to Flexner, the ‘really great discoveries’ have ‘been made by men and women who were driven not by the desire to be useful but merely the desire to satisfy their curiosity.’ To cultivate such curiosity, you should think of yourself as apprenticing to the craft of thought. As the intellectual historian Mary Carruthers puts it: ‘people do not ‘have’ ideas, they ‘make’ them.'” (para. 22)
Flexner has been part of these great discoveries in his own work, so Newstok adding this to support his argument was creative and useful in itself. He also utilizes a quote from Mary Carruthers to support his argument, who is a renowned professor and rhetorical writer. Flexner approaches cultivating curiosity as approaching the “craft of thought,” Carruthers says we “make” ideas. So, how can this be taught in the classroom? Could it be true that the 16th century methods can yield Shakespearean learning methods and skill to approach ideas as crafts of thought?
