How can you teach a classic? Start a discussion with Don Quixote!

Imagine picking up a novel, hoping for an entertaining read. You open it, read the first paragraph and realize that the main character is…

…your!

How would it feel?

This could be a good discussion starter for your students. After all, children are likely to point out that stranger things happen nowadays. One might well appear on someone’s blog, in a viral video, or even on television without expecting it, often in the most unpleasant way.

The discussion could also feature two of the most iconic figures in world literature: Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, the protagonists of Miguel de Cervantes’ 17th-century novel Don Quixote. They went through exactly this experience.

At the beginning of Part 2 of Don Quixote, the deluded “Knight of the Pitiful Figure” and his down-to-earth squire learn that they are the heroes of Part 1 of the novel and that they have to live with the consequences. of fame. Later, in Part 2, they discover (as does Cervantes, to their dismay) that an anonymous hack has already published a fake Part 2 that tries to capitalize on the success of Part 1. Through their characters’ reactions to this bogus job. , Cervantes masterfully ridicules the version of his unknown rival. Don Quixote and Sancho come more vividly alive when they contemplate their own presence in works of fiction.

As for poor Cervantes, he discovered that fame was not all it was believed to be. He wrote Don Quixote largely because he was broke and expected it to be a bestseller. Once it was in print, it “went viral” (as we might say today), appearing in all sorts of pirated editions. Cervantes wrote a real blockbuster, all right, and his name was internationally known, but he was left penniless. At least his fame lasted much longer than the 15 minutes allotted to most of us!

“A classic is something that everyone wants to have read and nobody wants to read,” as Mark Twain once observed. Now, I have read Walter Starkie’s 1000+ page translation twice. But I admit that this massive tome isn’t for everyone, let alone kids in grades six through ten. Still, how can anyone go through life without some familiarity with Don Quixote and Sancho Panza? They have been represented in drawings, paintings, sculptures, plays, movies, songs, symphonic works, operas, and a Broadway musical. Cervantes’s book has enriched the language itself with words and phrases like “quixotic” and “leaning against windmills.”

So how can you introduce your students to Don Quixote and Sancho in a single class period? You could let them write a story or improvise a scene to show what it would be like to suddenly find themselves as the main character in a story. You could let them act out that experience, or even make a video. I was delighted to tackle this problem for READ magazine in 2006. My answer is, do it dramatically.