Romeo and Juliet in class

Shakespear is a Writer and a poet who many of us has heard of, he has written some of the most famous plays and sonnets. One of them is Romeo and Juliet, for those who don`t know the play is about two young lovers who can`t be together because of their families and their feuds. The play is used in many secondary schools for teaching purpose, because of it`s relevance.

I`m going to show you two ways of using Shakespeare`s Romeo and Juliet in class. Because of the sometimes-difficult language, I have chosen to give you examples of teaching Romeo and Juliet to 10th graders because it might be easier to understand for them. 

The first example is to set up the play, you can do that by dividing the class into five group, where each group has to play one of the five acts (this depends on the size of your class). That way you don`t have to make every pupil read the whole book. Each group read just their own act, and then have the chance to discuss the language, and what some of the words means.  If you want to make it a big project you could make them film their act, that way it don`t feel so scary to show it to the others. It`s worse to perform it live than showing your classmates a movie. You can also decide if you want them to perform the play as it is, or let the pupils make a modern version. 

Another way is to show them the movie from 1968 by Director Franco Zefirelli, and then divide them into groups where each make a poster about how it was for people living in Shakespeare’s time. What they wore, what kind of social rules they had, if there is any likeness to today`s society. This way the pupils get a deeper understanding for the play, because they know more about what kind of time the characters lived in.

Sources
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063518/
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romeo_and_Juliet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare

By Karita Hansen