[vkou]

A Shakespeare play is fine for a high school curriculum. It would be a good contrast for more modern works, and it is an important cultural touchstone.

But there's no good reason to cover four, or five of them. Just pick one, struggle through it, and then go analyse three or four works of modern theatre, and modern penny theatre.

Half the point of schooling is trying to instill interest in a subject. Nothing instills disinterest in theatre like spending 80% of your mental energy trying to figure out what the hell the words mean.

Shakespeare is meant to be seen. Shakespeare is meant to be parsable with no mental effort by the 16-th century groundlings with the rotten fruit and a strong desire to throw it.

Shakespeare in grade 8-12 English is neither of those things.