Webb, Literature and Lives Chapter 5

In Webb's chapter 5, I found it to be not in line with my beliefs on classroom instruction and how to look at a work. I can see where he is coming from, but his views on how Shakespeare should be taught was very confusing to me. He mentioned that in order to understand his work you had to look at the historical facts about his time period. I think that is simply not true, the themes and ideas expressed within Shakespears dialogues are still present in todays society and are relavent to students today just as much as they were in his time. To understand Shakespear is to understand human nature, is how i feel about his work.
When I am teaching history to high school students, new historicism could be a double edged sword. On one hand I want my students to make connections about what is happening in their world currently to how this relates to what happened in the past. An on the other, I want my students to not be confused about what i expect of them. This approach to new historicism is a great way for students to tie current problems in the world to historical ones through novels and stories, but is also hard to understand if the student does not have proper instruction on it. Students should be given a lesson on how this approach should work and how it is beneficial for them to know. This way students will have the best oppertunity to succeed in your lessons. Questions that should be posed to students are, "How does the text apply to the conflicts as a whole?," "How was this book or story recieved at the time it was written?," or "What were the oppinions of this book or story from the point of views of the middle class, upper class, ethic groups, or immigrants?" by doing this I think students should be given the oppertunity to criticise books and what they stand for.