In a recent story by WBEZ Chicago, Curriculum and Instruction Ph.D. student Heather Hermann (Literacy Education) is featured for her use of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” to teach English and critical thinking skills to students studying for their General Equivalency Diploma (GED) exam.
In discussing the Minnesota Shakespeare Project, Hermann says, “I believe that adults returning to school deserve a high quality education. Sadly, I know of very few programs in which GED students are given the opportunity to read a full novel, play, or other complete literary work. These same students are then given test questions with fragments of literature in the form of passages on them and expected to answer comprehension questions concerning these passages. It seems unfair to me that this is the only way that GED students are exposed to literature, especially when reading literature is often the catalyst for finding one’s own voice, and these students have such incredible stories to share.”
Hermann serves as the GED Teacher & Program Developer for the Minnesota Literacy Council. For more on the Minnesota Literacy Council’s Shakespeare Program, visit their website and watch WBEZ Chicago’s video here.