Having organized two extra-credit “reader’s theater” sessions in my general education Shakespeare courses this semester, I was drawn to the possibilities that electronic texts provided for this kind of learning experience.  While more carefully edited texts continue to have a central place in my classroom, I decided to work with a public domain text from Project Gutenberg because the primary intent of these sessions was to invite students to experience the aural quality of the texts at length*.  Many might not ordinarily attend a Shakespeare performance or even imagine themselves in an actor’s role, and the more informal setting meant that asking students to purchase texts would be a difficult proposition at best.  Because I would be trimming the texts down to about two hours’ time in performance (no small feat with some Shakespeare texts, which is why I didn’t suggest King Lear), I wanted to give students a single e-text that they could print or use as they saw fit within the reading.  The advantages of providing a single version for students would be that students should theoretically have the same texts, but I have some concerns about the possibility of needing to troubleshoot several different media (print texts, tablet, e-reader, laptop, phone) within a very short session.  Where should this kind of training and support come from in the twenty-first century university?

*As the Project Gutenberg terms indicate, these public domain e-texts can be reproduced/changed provided they are not sold and that those texts including any references to Project Gutenberg itself must then include their full terms of use.