Journey Through History

I was terrified that I would turn students off of Shakespeare, but was gratified when Romeo and Juliet turned out to be their favorite text of the year! I attribute this success to the groundwork I laid in helping students understand the Bard’s language. To begin, I had students write Elizabethan-style skits. Then I asked them to guess whether Shakespeare wrote in Old, Middle, or Modern English. Of course, they guessed Old English, so I did a lesson on the changing English language. By the end of that, they were just relieved that we weren’t reading Old or Middle English! Finally, before starting the play, we looked at Shakespeare’s sonnets (see lesson, handout, and accompanying PowerPoint slides). I also did this lesson because I had them write a paper on a sonnet while we were reading Romeo and Juliet in class. By the way, this lesson was mostly taken from http://www.pbs.org/shakespeare/educators/language/lessonplan.html .

Before starting the play, I laid out Romeo & Juliet’s family trees. Then, once we got into Shakespeare a bit, I got students to appreciate Shakespeare’s use of puns, and had students play “Dear Abby.” (The family tree and the Abby assignment must be credited to my former colleague Cassie Green, who was a HUGE help in my first foray into teaching English!).