The finding of articles... a TOUGH prospect

I never thought using a database would end up being so difficult! When we went over it in class, I was so excited to actually show off my SKILLZ in finding the best articles. Well... when we were asked to find a review for Pacino's "Looking for Richard," I had to think long and hard about what to pick... and then I found it!! Anyone who wishes to see it, go to town.

Art & Performance Notes
Shakespeare to the People
Looking for Richard
Al Pacino
Review author[s]: Emily C. Bartels
Performing Arts Journal, Vol. 19, No. 1. (Jan., 1997), pp. 58-60.
Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0735-8393%28199701%2919%3A1%3C58%3ASTTP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-L
NOTE: This article contains high-quality images.

THEN - the hard part happened. I had to get the article about new methods of teaching Shakespeare in America. I hope I'm not the only one who found this difficult... I tried almost every search keyword I could think of, and still most of the articles were useless to me. Then I found "Determined to prove a villain": Criticism, Pedagogy, and Richard the III by Martine van Elk. The idea is to overlap textual classroom analysis with performance. This isn't a new idea, of course, but the approach has an edge to it. Also, if you'd like to read it,


Title:
"Determined to prove a villain": Criticism, Pedagogy, and "Richard III"
Personal Author:
Van Elk, Martine
Journal Name:
College Literature
Source:
College Literature v. 34 no. 4 (Fall 2007) p. 1-21
Publication Year:
2007
Abstract:
This essay offers suggestions for teaching William Shakespeare's Richard III, using a pedagogy that combines a historically aware, text-based exploration of the play's treatment of subjectivity with a performance-oriented approach. Concentrating especially on the play's famous opening speech, I explain how students might be encouraged to engage productively with the text's intermingling of competing, overlapping, and mutually enhancing models of identity. The play's representations of identity derive from the early modem period's secular humanism and metaphysical views of selfhood, but also present us with less clear-cut reflections on psychology and theatricality. The essay ends with an analysis of three modem film versions of the speech, showing how these can be used to help students learn to recognize the ways in which our own perspectives on identity are themselves the product of a long, complex, and often contradictory historical development. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
Subject(s):
Identity (Psychology) in literature; Villains in literature; Speeches, addresses, etc. in literature; English literature/Early modern (1500-1700)/Study and teaching; Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616/Works/Richard III
Peer Reviewed Journal:
Physical Description:
Bibliography
ISSN:
0093-3139
Language of Document:
English
Works:
Richard III [Drama]: Shakespeare, William
Document Type:
Feature Article
Update Code:
20071106
Database:
Humanities; Education
Accession Number:
200728803831005
Persistent URL:
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I think the difficulty of this assignment was what I found most fascinating about it. There were so many options and so many errors I could make. I found myself wandering around the databases. I wasn't able to focus my energy and go overwhelemd. It seemed like such a juvenile problem, and I really felt very stupid. I've learned, though, that the database can't do everything for me. I have to help it along a bit. It will just give me everything I ask for, and that's why I have to be careful about the questions I ask.