We began Romeo and Juliet today, our first day back from winter break. All morning, as I saw the Honors English kids, I smiled enthusiastically and said, “Today’s the day. The day!” Their response was generally the same: “Hurray!”

Except for the faux enthusiasm, my thoughts are just that: Hurray! I love getting to introduce kids to the unadulterated bard. No simplifications; no abridged versions — just a couple thousand lines of blank verse.

“Why are we even doing this?” one student asked. “Why Shakespeare? Why is he important?”

The thing I love about teaching these kids is that they ask questions like that no to try to get out of it or to let me know they think it’s not important and can’t be convinced otherwise; they want to know.

“Only one thing has had a greater impact on the English language in terms of introducing new idioms and even new words, and that’s the King James Bible.” Just look at some of the things we say on a regular basis that came from Billy:

• all that glitters isn’t gold.
• barefaced.
• be all and end all.
• break the ice.
• breathe one’s last.
• brevity is the soul of wit.
• catch a cold.
• clothes make the man.
• it’s Greek to me
• lackluster
• leapfrog
• live long day
• wear one’s heart on one’s sleeve

And that’s far from an exhaustive list.

I explained this, and then simply summarized: “Because most scholars, writers, and general readers consider him to be the most influential and perhaps best writer of the English language.”

They weren’t convinced, but it did soften their resolve a bit — perhaps it won’t be the worst thing in the world.