Jenna - why study shakespear

I believe that Shakespeare should continue to be taught in high schools across the country. Although it was written over 400 years ago there are essential themes that are still relevant today. His plays include wonderful plots, engaging characters and timeless emotions. Despite the fact that the old Elizabethan language is hard to understand, it poses a healthy challenge for students everywhere. Challenge is something that every student should be posed with. A substantial amount of our English language today was actually created by Shakespeare and students should who this incredible author was. Even though it is hard to get past the language barrier, the underlying plots of his plays are very engaging and interesting. There are themes of betrayal, love, death and revenge and all of these relate to people today. Shakespeare's plays display familiar people who experience situations just like we do today. These themes and experiences are and will continue to be relevant in todays society. Shakespeare's plays are general knowledge of which everyone should know a little bit about. Studying it in high school is the perfect balance. You get introduced to the subject of Shakespeare and if you choose too, you can continue to study it in university. This is just like math. Math is a mandatory subject in high school and if you want to continue with it, you can. Shakespeare teaches you a specific way to learn that math does not teach you. Overall there are many reasons why Shakespeare should continue to be taught in high schools.