teaching shakespear - pros/cons

I don't know about teaching Shakespeare but spelling lessons might be a good idea...

Personally, Shakespeare makes for good plays, but dry reading (as it should be).

I suppose the pros would be that it helps students grasp symbolism and partially understand archaic english. It is also an exposure to a facet of European culture they may not be exposed to otherwise.

The plays also are good to help students understand the literature themes of drama, tragedy, etc.

The cons are that there are much better books they could be reading that are made to be books, not plays.

Other then that, I suppose that Shakespeare is taught in schools because you can read it through with your class then pop in a video or take a field trip to see a live performance of the same material to put it in context.