Teaching Shakespeare: "Romeo and Juliet," William Shakespeare

Teaching: Romeo and Juliet
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“Romeo and Juliet” 12,983 words; some visuals

My Review: Teaching Romeo and Juliet

Some History:
In the 1980s and 1990s in Jefferson County, Colorado, a cursed socio/emotional/medical problem raised its ugly head—ten suicides at 2 different schools. In the 1980s, I taught English Language Arts to 12th graders at Alameda High School. During one school year, we lost 10 of our students to suicide and suicidal acts. One tragedy was in the school’s parking lot, another involved a car full of teen-aged girls and a car driven by a drunken boy. All were killed in an ugly crash on a side-street in the neighborhood. The incident that most affect me, my captain, all-star soccer player, took his life one day before the season ended. The school was on hyper alert for the sting of funerals and the reasons why they happened. Amazingly, no one objected to the teaching of “Romeo and Juliet” as part of the school curriculum.
After transferring to another close Lakewood High School, I went through another 12 funerals in one year at Green Mountain High School. Kids from split families, drugs, and frequent school transfers were the reasons we “blamed” for this contagious outbreak. And, we were given an “order” to abandon teaching “Romeo and Juliet” because it was “too disturbing.”
So students at two similar high schools in two different neighboring schools were allowed to study the play, and not allowed to study the play. “What they don’t know won’t hurt them,” was the mantra for the ban.
At Green Mountain, the English curriculum always had a Shakespeare play grounding the reading curriculum. “Romeo and Juliet” for freshmen; “Hamlet,” for sophomores; “Macbeth,” for juniors; and teacher’s choice for seniors. We were very proud of this, a little embarrassed for the ban, and the Seniors who had missed “R and J” their freshmen year, begged for “Romeo and Juliet”—so we gave it to them.
In order to keep the study “upbeat” and Shakespearean, these seniors, who faced a little pushback from some faculty and administration, changed a lot about the way I approached teaching. This is the result.
I was very surprised how easy it was to teach the seniors and how painful it was to teach the freshmen. Of course, the girls always embraced and generally loved the play.

I’ve also taught this in Middle School to advanced readers and to a Community College Class who were getting college credit and high school graduation credit simultaneously.

In each instance, we studied the play, read quietly and out loud, performed scenes from the play in class, discussed the play, and then “Watched” the play—as Shakespeare intended.

I would almost always teach the class in this way…. Go slow, Go fast. Stage key scenes in class, after reviewing them. The Teacher is the director.

5 minute plot, analysis, upbeat scenes. 5 minutes-10 minutes. YouTube. “Thug Notes”

Romeo and Juliet Playbill:
Prologue: function of chorus: remind the audience of the story of “Romeo and Juliet.”
--review Shakespearean Sonnets

Act 1: Romeo and Benvolio speak about Rosaline, who has basically avoided Romeo’s attempts at love:
--His ultimate advice: look elsewhere: “examine other beauties.”

Act 1: At the Capulet masked ball, Romeo sees Juliet and from afar, he professes to the Servingman how beautiful she is.
--Tybalt, Juliet’s cousin, overhears their conversation. Tybalt is ordered to stand down, lest he ruin Juliet’s coming-out party.

Act 1: Romeo meets Juliet and begins to court her.
--images: Saints and pilgrims; lips and hands
--Juliet discovers that her only love is from the Montagues: the Capulet’s mortal enemy


Act II: another sonnet by the Chorus;
--necessity to review the plot of the play for the “groundlings”

Act II: Balcony scene: Read it; discuss it. Pick the most famous passage.
--Romeo sneaks away from her friends, and into the Montague’s garden, where he spies at Juliet, telling the stars that she’s in love with Romeo.
--day/night images; sun/moon images
--swearing by the moon; swearing by thyself
--satisfaction theme

Act II: The tensions of the blood feud are strong in the street while Friar Laurence weds the couple before they have sex

Act III: Tybalt engages Benvolio and Mercutio, and they exchange insults. Romeo tries to play the peacemaker and when Tybalt draws his sword and sticks it, Romeo is trying to shield his friend and the sword pierces through.
--Mercutio dies
--Romeo kills Tybalt in revenge

Act IV: Friar Laurence plans to reunite Romeo (who has fled) with Juliet (who wants to kill herself) with a plan that involves faking her death with a drug that makes her seem dead and Romeo rescuing Juliet from the tomb.

Act IV: Juliet takes the drug and her parents and friends mourn her death. They were planning for Juliet to marry Count Paris, now they plan her funeral and entombment.

Act V: Romeo, in exile in Mantua, hears of Juliet dying. He goes to a pharmacy (apothecary) and buys deadly poison. Goes to see Juliet, in Verona, for the last time.

Act V: Friar Laurence finds out that his friend has NOT delivered the message to Romeo that Juliet is fake dead. He rushes to the Capulet tomb, Juliet is about to awake from the knockout drug, and he wants to be there.

Act V: Romeo arrives at the tomb, which is guarded by Count Paris. Trying to avoid a fight, Paris tries to arrest Romeo, forces a fight and dies. Romeo promises the dying Paris to bury him by placing him in the Capulet tomb, next to Juliet. Romeo sees Juliet dead, remarks that she is beautiful even in death, and then kills himself with the poison.

Act V: Juliet awakens. She sees Romeo and Paris dead in the tomb and the cousin, Tybalt in the corner. She takes Romeo’s dagger and kills herself. Friar Laurence relays the story to the arriving Capulets and Montagues, tells them the story. The families end the blood feud in honor of their children.