Thinking Like Shakespeare

From http://www.chronicle.com/article/How-to-Think-Like-Shakespeare/237593

Class of 2020: welcome to college, your workshop for thought. You have the "gift of the interval": an enviable chance to undertake a serious, sustained intellectual apprenticeship. You will prove your craft every time you choose to open a book; every time you choose to settle down to write without distraction; every time you choose to listen, to consider, and to contribute to a difficult yet open conversation. Do not cheat yourselves.

While the Latin curriculum has long since vanished, you can still bring precision to your words, invention to your work, and empathy to your world.

Scott L. Newstok directs the Pearce Shakespeare Endowment at Rhodes College, where he gave a convocation address from which this essay is adapted.  Scott is editor of a book on Kenneth Burke and Shakespeare.