From Pericles:

See how belief may suffer by foul show!
This borrow’d passion stands for true old woe.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Obsessed senators would drop a few of the bombs on Hillary, so her future is iffy.

Wow.

This is the 35th in a series of 40 pop-music parodies for Shakespeare fans.

Enjoy!

Legionnaire
sung to the tune of “Billionaire”

(With apologies to Travie McCoy and… Bruno Mars, again?)

You know I’ve been a legionnaire so very long.
A well-trained army keeps the empire strong.
I’ve fought in armed conflict for my native Rome,
Keeping all our people safe at home.

Oh, every time I close my eyes
I feel consumed with battle cries.
I’m always ready for a fight, alright.
I swear, my foes better prepare,
‘Cause I’m a legionnaire!

Yeah, I went against the Volscians,
Fighting alongside Cominius.
A fine Roman he is.
At Corioles, I took the lead on an attack.
At first, the enemy was able to beat us back.
Then I managed to break open the city gates,
Which as you would think sealed the Volscian’s fates.
I got a title for playing a heroic role.
You can call me Marcius, minus the Coriol.
Ha, ha, get it? I’d probably see if I could make a run
For a public office, like consul, imagine if I’d won.
Yeah, I’d be a big deal once I’m elected.
Everywhere I go I’d be feared and respected.

Oh, every time I close my eyes
I feel consumed with battle cries.
I’m always ready for a fight, alright.
I swear, my foes better prepare,
‘Cause I’m a legionnaire!

I’ll get the support of the Roman Senate,
Whipping up the delegates.
Then I’ll ask the plebes, only in the name of etiquette.
They’re not too important, but just for the heck of it.
The plebes and the patricians should be completely separate.
For crows to peck at eagles, I can’t really back it.
I’ve earned my accession, it’s too bad if you balk at it.
I see you take offense at this. I don’t really care,
And you want to banish me which is really unfair,
When I fought in your wars. Who are you to judge me,
Eating good, sleeping soundly?
And you think you can banish me?
I banish you, you’ll no longer have
Coriolanus to kick around.

You know I’ve been a legionnaire so very long.
A well-trained army keeps the empire strong.
I’ve fought in armed conflict for my native Rome,
Keeping all our people safe at home.

Oh, every time I close my eyes
I feel consumed with battle cries.
I’m always ready for a fight, alright.
I swear, Rome better prepare,
‘Cause I’m a legionnaire!

You know I’ve been a legionnaire so very long.

This is the 34th in a series of 40 pop-music parodies for Shakespeare fans.

Enjoy!

Full Stop
sung to the tune of “Thrift Shop”

(With apologies to Macklemore, Ryan Lewis, and Wanz…)

Hey, Shakespeare! Can you write some poetry?

Da DUM Da DUM Da DUM Da DUM Da DUM
Da DUM Da DUM Da DUM Da DUM Da DUM
Da DUM Da DUM Da DUM Da DUM Da DUM
Da DUM Da DUM Da DUM Da DUM Da DUM

ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
ABAB CDCD EFEF GG

I’m gonna write some verse.
Only got fourteen lines in a sonnet:
I-I-Iambic Pentameter,
With a given rhyme scheme.

Nah, take up the quill like “What up? Gonna write a lot.”
Three quatrains and a couplet ending in a full stop.
Ink on the parchment, I’m so close on it,
That people like “Damn! That’s a perfect sonnet.”
Gonna get hella deep, compare thee to a summer’s day,
But it’s all in your favor, ‘cause thou art lovelier, if I may.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Yes!
It doesn’t even have to make sense!

Thinkin’ it, Writin’ it, Let me confess that we two must be twain.
Our undivided loves are one, so shall those blots with me remain.
Sometimes I write for my favorite young man,
Or else it’s the Dark Lady and…
Starting a new one, it’s: O! How thy worth with manners may I sing?
What can praise to myself bring? What can praise to myself bring?
No, for real – what a torment would thy absence prove?
Better entertain the time with thoughts of love,
Immortalized in poetry that I’ve been writin’.
You shall shine more bright in this powerful rhyme
Than gilded monuments besmear’d with sluttish time.
Hello, Hello, Good e’en, good fellow!
Petrarch ain’t got nothing on my rhyme schemes, hell no!
I could take them to the printer, bind them up, sell those.
The tavern gang would be like “Aw, he got the Quartos.”

I’m gonna write some verse.
Only got fourteen lines in a sonnet:
I-I-Iambic Pentameter,
With a given rhyme scheme.

I’m gonna write some verse.
Only got fourteen lines in a sonnet:
I-I-Iambic Pentameter,
With a given rhyme scheme.

Let me not impede the marriage of true minds.
Love’s not love which alters when it alteration finds.
If this be, If this be error, and upon me prov’d,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.
Thank God, my mistress’s eyes are nothing like the sun.
Her hairs be wires and her breasts be dun.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
Chiasmus, Ekphrasis, Litotes, Ellipsis…
I use all those Greek devices, so much more than any other.
Though I know she lies, I believe my tender lover,
And that allows us both to be flattered by each other.
She be like “Oh, he believes me that I am full of truth.”
I’m like “O, she thinks that I am some untutored youth.”
It’s an illusion, just a mutual delusion.
Full of truth? To think that I’m a youth?
No, I think that I am long in the tooth.
But I lie with her, and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flatter’d be.
I still love her so.
Those lips that Love’s own hand did make
Breathed forth the sound that said “I hate,”
To me that languished for her sake,
So I wrote her a sonnet, she thought it was great.

She thought it was great.

Good Will! Write some verse! Yeah!

I’m gonna write some verse.
Only got fourteen lines in a sonnet:
I-I-Iambic Pentameter,
With a given rhyme scheme.

I share with you, my friend:
To Mr. W.H.,
These poems that I penned,
With a full stop at the end.

I share with you, my friend:
To Mr. W.H.,
These poems that I penned,
With a full stop at the end.

I’m gonna write some verse.
Only got fourteen lines in a sonnet:
I-I-Iambic Pentameter,
With a given rhyme scheme.

Is that a full stop at the end?

The year was 2002. I was teaching an advanced graduate course on Shakespeare, and I chose to give my final exam as a take-home. The questions included true/false, short answer, extended response, and one long essay.

I mentioned this while having dinner one night with friends. Brian, who runs a successful business he built himself, scoffed at the very notion of a take-home final in the age of the Internet. Couldn’t the students just look up all of the answers? This was around the time when people were starting to use “Google” as a verb, and many students were more tech-savvy than their professors. I assured Brian that the test would still be challenging as a take-home, but he remained unconvinced.

Brian offered me a wager. He would take the exam along with my students, despite not having taken the course or even knowing very much about Shakespeare. As long as he could research and plagiarize as much as he wanted, he claimed he could pass my final. I accepted the bet.

In the weeks to come, Brian became consumed with the task. He researched each question, writing and rewriting answers to perfection. He put way more time into that final than any of the students, and he plagiarized without shame. But, he completed the final on the same schedule as the students, and ended up scoring a 91 out of a possible 100 points. This was slightly below the class average, but he clearly won the bet.

However, he did admit that, in order to be successful on the final, he had to learn a whole lot about Shakespeare along the way. He may not have taken the course, but he ended up doing much of the work he would have had to do anyway, engaging with the material throughout the process.

It’s worth noting at this point that the exam only represented 10% of the final grade. Much more of the course was about participation in class discussions and completing projects. But with Brian’s self-guided work, he was able to earn 9.1% of the course grade without ever setting foot in my classroom. Had he attempted some of the projects, and applied the same level of drive to them, he could have earned even more points, learning even more about Shakespeare in the process.

This is a good way to think about assessment. We define what students should be able to do after a unit of study, and we define a way to measure whether or not they’ve learned it. The unit of study, then, should be designed to help students succeed in the measurement. If that sounds too much like teaching to the test, that’s fine, but then we should start designing tests worth teaching to.

This is the idea of the performance task. Rather than having students fill out multiple-choice bubble sheets, they do authentic tasks. They understand how the skills they are learning in school are applied in the real world. And when students show they are able to transfer their learning into unfamiliar contexts, as they should in any good performance task, they demonstrate deep understanding of the skills and concepts being covered.

So, if a student can succeed in the teacher-created assessment before the instruction, is the instruction really necessary? If students can take the initiative to demonstrate their meeting the same learning goals some other way, shouldn’t they get credit for it? And if real-world authenticity is the aim, shouldn’t students be able to use the same tools a real-world businessman would use when working toward the same goal?

These are questions we’re now grappling with in assessment. But I thank Brian for giving me a head start in thinking about them so many years ago.

From Love’s Labour’s Lost:

They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

At George Bush’s last gala event, they ran a defense of a past he can’t.

This is the 33rd in a series of 40 pop-music parodies for Shakespeare fans.

Enjoy!

The Crazy Song
sung to the tune of “The Lazy Song”

(With apologies, once again, to Bruno Mars…)

Today, I feel like I have no sanity;
I just may go out of my head.
No sense in sifting through the facts;
I have no causes for my acts,
‘Cause today I swear I just have no sanity.

I’m gonna beg my best friend to prolong his stay.
If he agrees, it proves my wife’s gone astray.
Nobody’s gon’ tell me it can’t.

I’ll poison his drink, make him feel deadly woozy,
Then I’ll turn on my wife, calling her a petty floozy,
‘Cause in my castle, I’m the freakin’ man.

Oh yes, I said it. I said it.
It’s good to be the king.

Today, I feel like I have no sanity;
I just may go out of my head.
No sense in sifting through the facts;
I have no causes for my acts,
‘Cause today I swear I just have no sanity,
No sense at all.

No sense at all.

Tomorrow I’ll wake up, and I’ll call for my guy,
To take the bastard out, and abandon her to die,
And he’ll exit pursued by a bear.
(Omigod! It’s a bear!)
Yeah!

I’ll allow my “winter’s” tale to elide sixteen years,
As Aristotle’s unity of time disappears;
‘Cause when it comes to rules, I don’t care.

Oh yes, I said it. I said it.
It’s good to be the king.

Today, I feel like I have no sanity;
I just may go out of my head.
No sense in sifting through the facts;
I have no causes for my acts,
‘Cause today I swear I just have no sanity,
No sense at all.

I won’t worry ’bout a judging glare,
‘Cause nobody here would dare.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
I won’t realize the statue’s my wife,
But instead I’ll believe it came to life.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, today, I feel like I have no sanity;
I just may go out of my head.
No sense in sifting through the facts;
I have no causes for my acts,
‘Cause today I swear I just have no sanity.
No sense at all.

No sense at all.

No sense at all.

From Henry VI, Part One:

Alas, this is a child, a silly dwarf!
It cannot be this weak and writhled shrimp
Should strike such terror to his enemies.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Warlike hurts, or deaths we cry at, in Boston lie.

Discuss hardships with kids and let them cherish familial relations.

This is the 32nd in a series of 40 pop-music parodies for Shakespeare fans.

Enjoy!

The Bastard
based on the song “Jack Sparrow”

(With apologies to Lonely Island, Michael Bolton, and the Walt Disney corporation…)

[Messina: Don Pedro, Don John, Leonato, Claudio, Benedick]

P: Signior Claudio, and Signior Benedick, my
dear friend Leonato hath invited you all. I tell
him we shall stay here at the least a month,
and he heartily prays some occasion may
detain us longer.

L: Let me bid you welcome, my lord:
being reconciled to the prince your
brother, I owe you all duty.

J: I thank you:
I am not of many words,
but I thank you.

L: Please it your Grace lead on? [Exit]

J: Boys, let’s get to it…

P: Here we go…

B: Claudio, Benedick, Don Pedro, Don John…

J: Yeah!

C: The night starts now…

B: On Leonato’s tract,
The boys are back!

C: The night starts now!

B: Night starts now,
‘Cause we’re back from the war;
You know we’re all gearing up
For a little R&R.

J: Yeah, yeah!

P: My soldiers proved to be the paragon
Of defenders of the Kingdom of Aragon.

J: Come on!

C: Enemy retreating
As we’re taking to the field;
All the rebels quake and tremble
And they’re quickly gonna yield.
Sword in my hand, and a pistol I’ve got;
You’ll either get cut, get stabbed, or get shot.

J: This is the tale
Of Don John the Bastard;
Stood up to the prince,
And challenged his place.

B: What?

J: Now he’s taken back,
Trusted with a muzzle;
Better a canker in his hedge,
Than a rose in his grace.

P: Yeah, that was kind of weird,
But we’re here catching up;
We’re soldiers back from war,
And now our thoughts have turned to love.

J: Misbegotten.

C: I have set my sights
On Leonato’s daughter;
I liked before the war,
But in peace I think I got her.

J: Half-blooded.

B:Watch it girl, cause I ain’t
Your “getting wed” guy,
More like the “insult you,
And then get inside your head” guy.

J: Yeah, yeah.

B: Beatrice and I
Have been in a merry war,
But to be perfectly honest, I…

J: Now back to the good part!

From the day he was born,
He wore the bar sinister.

B: No!

J: In his melancholy face,
Is a mouth that would bite.

He’s the black sheep of the clan,
The trickster of Messina.

P: Uh huh.

J: But knowing his ill birth,
Can you begrudge him his fight?

B: Yeah, we know what a bastard is.

P: Put the war in the past
And forgive old debts, come on.

J: Illegitimate.

B: What?

J: Love child.

C: No!

P: It’s a time for mirth,
So don’t dwell on birth, come on.

J: Nullius filius.

B: Nope.

J: Bastard-born.

B: Wrong.

C: Don John, we’re really gonna need you to focus up.

J: Roger that, let me show you what I mean.

B: Wait.

J: The prince says he’s on your side,
But it’s really just a ruse.

P: Not true.

J: He wants to win her for himself,
And that is why he woos.

B: Come on.

J: Okay, then pull my finger;
Watch hilarity ensue.

C: No, thank you.

J: Then please allow me to imply
That your lady’s been untrue.

C: Wait, what?

J: (If I can cross him any way,
I bless myself every way.)

This is the tale
Of your mistress Hero;
Take her to wife,
And a cuckold you’ll be!

B: Take it home.

J: Disloyal’s too good
A word for the wicked;
Follow me tonight,
So you all can see.

C: Okay, turns out that Don John is a major bastard.

J: My parents weren’t married.

B: Yup.

P: Yeah, okay.

This is the 31st in a series of 40 pop-music parodies for Shakespeare fans.

Enjoy!

Rights
sung to the tune of “Lights”

(With apologies to Ellie Goulding, and those planning to read King John… SPOILERS!)

I claimed divine rights,
Ruling here on my own.
There is a vague threat,
But the king will not be overthrown.

And I’m not sleeping now;
The French king has forced my hand.
And if I’m staying strong,
I must do something drastic.

You know the rights that boy has to the throne:
He’d claim them when he’s grown.
And so I tell my man he must be strong,
Inform me when he’s gone.

And he’s falling, falling, falling way down,
Falling, falling, falling, down.
You know the rights that boy has to the throne:
He’d claim them when he’s grown.
Oh-oh-oh…

I never thought
I would be king;
Never owned land,
As I’m the youngest brother.

But that changed quickly when
My father and my brothers died:
Now the Bastard is
The only nephew who’s safe.

You know the rights that boy has to the throne:
He’d claim them when he’s grown.
And so I tell my man he must be strong,
Inform me when he’s gone.

And he’s falling, falling, falling way down,
Falling, falling, falling, down.
You know the rights that boy has to the throne:
He’d claim them when he’s grown.
Oh-oh-oh…

From A Midsummer Night’s Dream:

A play there is, my lord, some ten words long,
Which is as brief as I have known a play;
But by ten words, my lord, it is too long,
Which makes it tedious.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

My mood? Vocal Roger Ebert had a symbiotic relationship with dry Gene Siskel, then shone solo.

If it was thumbs up or down, it was always kindly.