Romeo and Juliet

Shakespeare: Tragedy, Comedy and Metaphor

“The poem, the song, the picture is only water drawn from the well of people
and it should be given back to them in a cup of beauty so that they may drink—
and in drinking, understand themselves.”
--Lorca


This unit will give students a chance to look at Shakespeare from a personal and cultural perspective. The class will break of the structure of the play Romeo and Juliet and discuss how metaphor and symbol, plot and theme work in conjunction with the development of characters and ideas. Ultimately, students will need to answer what “Romeo and Juliet” represents to our culture and what it personally means to them. Students will need to reflect on personal experience and apply it to the play.

OBJECTIVES: At the end of this unit students will be able to

Knowledge:

1) List the five elements of tragedy
2) List the five elements of a tragic hero
3) Define theme, plot, setting, foreshadow, oxymoron, soliloquy, personification, dramatic foil, metaphor, symbol, simile
4) Give the four elements of a sonnet and a brief description of traditional sonnet themes
5) Describe how sonnets are used in Romeo and Juliet
6) Define various vocabulary words from the play
7) List three things the prologue of the play does

Comprehension:

8) Identify a metaphor within a line of poetry
9) Identify the rhyme scheme of a English sonnet and break a sonnet into quatrains and couplets
10) Give a brief description of all the characters and their roles in the play
11) Given a line of dialogue identify the speaker
12) Outline the plot and break in up into exposition, inciting event, rising action, climax, falling action and catastrophe (or resolution)
13) Summarize each scene into a headline

Application

14) Demonstrate an understanding of a scene in a drawing
15) Demonstrate a relation of characters to contemporary times through a simulation called “TOO HOT FOR SHAKESPEARE: ROMEO AND JULIET LIVE ON THE JERRY SPRINGER SHOW”
16) Demonstrate an understanding of characters and acting techniques by writing out a script (including the lines, subtext, emotion or tone, and blocking) and acting out the scene from memory
17) Demonstrate an understanding of the play by writing journal entries and in-class writing assignments including a Dear Abbey Letter, interviews with citizens of Verona, Wedding Vows between Romeo and Juliet, personal responses, in-class presentations on characters.


Analysis

18) Write a persuasion paper on Romeo and Juliet.
19) In an essay compare and contrast a Shakespeare Comedy to a Shakespeare Tragedy.
20) In an essay discuss with evidence from the text who is responsible for the deaths of “the star-crossed” lovers


Synthesis

21) Write a sonnet


STUDENTS WILL BE ASSESSED IN THE FOLLOWING WAYS:

1) Class participation (this includes worksheets, homework)
2) Oral presentations and drawings
3) Individual writing (both critical and creative)
4) Character acting
5) Quizzes and Unit Final
6) Unit Project (if time permits)

ACTIVITIES TO BE INCLUDED (but not limited to)

1) short lectures
2) note guides for movies, reading and lectures
3) in-class reading/ some homework reading
4) in-class writing
5) role-plays/ simulations
6) dramatic acting of scenes and/or poems
7) drawings
8) listening to CDs related to Shakespeare
9) Projects