It's evident that Shakespeare received a very strong early grounding in what used to be known as the trivium: logic, grammar and rhetoric. These disciplines were taught in a style that we would now consider a thing of the past, perhaps even regressive. Exercises, drilling, memorization of terms - these approaches are frowned upon in our more enlightened times. Today, instruction is informed with educational jargon, which if looked at fairly and honestly, says very little, and accomplishes even less. In today's world, we'd be very lucky to find a high school student who could define such rhetorical terms as anaphora (repeating a word or phrase to start of successive clauses or lines), anadiplosis (repeating the final word of a phrase at the beginning of the next), and chiasmus (the repetition of two terms in reverse order), let alone use them. As Woody Allen once wrote (in a different context): This is progress? Here are examples of the figures listed above, all from Richard II, courtesy of the Oxford Companion to Shakespeare:

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England...

(2.1)

My brain I'll prove the female to my soul,

My soul the father . . .

(5.5)

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me...

(5.5)

Shakespeare was a writer whose technique was advanced to such a point that he could transcend the rules (or conventions, if you prefer) that usually govern what can be done in written English. Therefore, his work is the best possible place to learn about syntax, grammar, sentence construction, poetic metre, rhetoric, and figurative language. A multitude of examples of each of the above are available for study and discussion, and the best thing is that all of it was done to create a combination of dramatic art, poetry and philosophy that still hasn't been surpassed. In other words, Shakespeare contains style and substance, both of which are necessary to engage young minds.