Making Romeo and Juliet Pop

Hi everyone,

My name is Alexandra and I am currently a student at Aurora University, majoring in Secondary Ed. English. Currently I am creating a unit for a class and I was hoping to base my unit on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
But I am also pre-teaching 9^th graders and we are reading Romeo and
Juliet soon. I was hoping to design the unit around a differentiated classroom.
I want to get away from the same old same old reading the dead guy that has the
funky language no one can understand. However, I do have some ideas on what I
want my students to know and what I want them to be able to do.

What I want them to know:

· Characters and their appropriate character traits
· What a close analysis is and a close reading
· Themes and the different ones that show up in R&J
· what soliloquy is
· literary elements
· symbolism

What I want them to be able to do

· compare and contrasts characters/traits
· explain the literary elements along with the play
· analyze the themes in the play
· be able to use Shakespearean vocab in context and relate it to every day words now
· be able to analyze symbolisms
· describe the style of writing with in Romeo and Juliet
· be able to make connections between Romeo and Juliet to their own lives

I will have to come up with a final assessment as well, but I am still a little sketchy on this aspect. If you have any ideas or suggests on what I have listed here or what I don’t, please do leave a comment. Thanks!

This is what I have found….

Thanks,

Alexandra

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jo Wheeler on February 22, 2010 at 5:26pm

http://www.classicalcomics.com/education/freedownloads.html
All our Shakespeare graphic novels offer a 3-tier approach (Original unabridged, Plain English and Quick Text) and you can download a section from Romeo & Juliet from the above link. We also provide a "No Text" version, featuring empty word balloons that your students can fill in themselves. There is also a free-to-download teaching resource to accompany the play, which may help you.

Permalink Reply by Alexandra West on February 22, 2010 at 6:03pm

Wow! This looks great! I am definitely going to try to use some of these in my unit! THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Permalink Reply by Ryan Goble on February 22, 2010 at 6:08pm

AW,

You should go on Amazon and buy these comics right away! Great stuff, thanks for reminding folks Jo!!

Permalink Reply by Ryan Goble on February 22, 2010 at 6:08pm

Alexandra - some of your links above are not working, so I'm not positive what they are but do be sure to check out the crazy list of R&J resources that were dropped when Nick dropped this very question in last term's class....

See this discussion and its MANY responses.

Permalink Reply by Alexandra West on February 22, 2010 at 6:18pm

I will check them out again. I have them book marked. Thanks for letting me know.

Permalink Reply by Fred Haas on February 23, 2010 at 1:10pm

In addition to the resources her and the great previous discussion, I would add a few things. One never underestimate the power of using multiple cinematic version in class. I often will show some of the most critical scenes multiple times from a variety of film versions. I always have at least three very different interpretations at my disposal. Consider looking at this blogpost by Michael Lominico at PBS Teachers. While it focuses more on King Lear, it has a lot of great ideas that could be used for any play. Lominico also started the Teaching Shakespeare Group in the English Companion Ning, which can be pretty interesting at times.

Making Romeo and Juliet Pop

Replies to This Discussion

Events