Ideas for teaching Romeo and Juliet
1. Watch the Baz Luhrmann film version of the play
2. Give pupils a copy of all the main character’s names
and ask them to work in groups to create a ‘family tree ‘ showing
the connections between the different characters.
3. Give each group a cut up version of the plot and ask them to
sequence it together into chronological order.
4. Revisit the prologue in the film, the prologue being delivered on
the Rose stage from ‘Shakespeare in Love’ and then examine
the text focusing on the information that it carries and the role it
plays in setting the scene. Discuss the themes that it highlights.
5 . Examine Act 1 Scene 1 explaining that biting the thumb was an
insult. Pupils work in groups of four to examine the lines from
the play and acting out the beginning of the potential fight.
6. Examine Romeo’s soliloquy about the contradictions of love.
Pupils work in pairs to create phrases of opposites. Use the
writing scaffold to enable this. Link this with word level
activities on opposites and synonyms /antonyms to extend
pupil’s language.
7. Read Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech. Discuss what it means.
Give the pupils a copy and ask them to illustrate it as if they
were publishing it in a book.
8. Revisit the ball scene and examine how Romeo flirts with Juliet
and how she tries to resist him. Ask pupils to write a modern
version of the scene.
Examine the different themes in the scene such as the importance of
light and focus on the use of iambic pentameter as a structure to
support the language. Model writing words of love using this structure.
Pupils work in pairs to create their own lines.
(see examples of this that pupils produced)
9. Read the scene where Juliet is deliberating whether or not to
take the potion that Friar Lawrence has given her and discuss her
fears. Ask the pupils to find the most powerful images from the
text and practise saying them out aloud to create the atmosphere of
the vault. The pupils then create a ‘conscience alley’ where they repeat
their phrase appropriately whilst Juliet walks through, thus creating
her inner most thoughts aloud.
Follow this up using the writing scaffold to support children in writing
their own version of the monologue. (see children’s writing)
10. Re-enact the fight scene between Romeo, Mercutio and Tybalt and
then ask the pupils to complete the thought bubbles to explore their
feelings at these moments.
11. Watch the death scenes of Romeo and Juliet. Pupils to locate the
phrases that move them most and use them to create a graffiti wall in
the classroom. These can then be discussed and the pupils can be
encouraged to express why they have chosen those specific lines.
12. Create a character box. (see notes)
13. Create an information page about the life of William Shakespeare that
is both visually interesting and informative.
Ideas by Dawn Robertson, Salford Literacy Consultant
The Plot of Romeo and Juliet
The prologue is said. It is a short passage that tells the audience what the
play is going to be about.
Sunday morning
The Montague gang meet the Capulet gang and both try to encourage
their enemies to start a fight. Benvolio tries to stop everyone from
fighting, but Tybalt starts a battle!
Paris meets Capulet and asks if he can marry Juliet. Capulet says she is too
young, but he can marry her in two years time.
Romeo is not involved in the fight because he is too busy day dreaming
about Rosaline, who is a Capulet. Benvolio tells him to snap out of it.
They hear that there is going to be a party at the Capulet house and they
decide to go.
Sunday night
Mercutio gets tickets for the party and Romeo goes. Tybalt spots him and
is furious because he shouldn’t be there. He decides to get revenge. He
sees Juliet and falls in love with her. But they soon find out that their
families are enemies. Romeo climbs over the high wall to see Juliet. They
declare their love for each other and decide to marry.
Romeo visits the Friar Lawrence to ask him if he will marry him to Juliet.
He agrees, hoping that it will bring the two fueding families together.
Monday
The nurse meets Romeo and they arrange for Juliet to go to the church in
order to get married.
They are married by Friar Lawrence, whilst the nurse is a witness.
Tybalt sends a demand to Romeo’s house for a duel. He then goes
searching for Romeo. He finds Mercutio and eventually Romeo, who
refuses to fight because they are now cousins. Tybalt begins to attack
Romeo and Mercutio ends up being fatally injured. He dies in Romeo’s
arms.
Romeo goes in search of Tybalt to get revenge for his friend’s death.
He finds him and kills him.
Romeo is banished for killing Tybalt and must leave Verona.
The Friar advises Romeo to go to Mantua until he can sort out the
problem.
Monday night/Tuesday morning
Romeo and Juliet spend the night together. He has to leave the next
morning or he will die. Juliet has a terrible feeling that she will never see
him again. He escapes to Mantua.
Capulet decides that Juliet, who is very unhappy, should marry Paris on
Thursday. She refuses and he is extremely angry.
Juliet goes to visit Friar Lawrence to tell him that she would rather kill
herself than marry Paris. He gives her a special potion that will make it
look like she is dead and when she wakes up he will make sure that
Romeo is there so that they can run away together.
Friar Lawrence sends a message to tell Romeo that Juliet is pretending to
be dead, but he never gets it.
Wednesday morning
Juliet takes the special sleeping potion and ‘dies’.
Romeo’s servant sees that Juliet is dead and goes to Mantua to tell
Romeo the awful news. He is uncontrollably angry and upset and returns
to Verona to be with Juliet. On the way he buys some poison to kill
himself with.
Early Thursday morning
He goes to the church, being chased by Escalus and his men. He sees Juliet
and takes the poison and dies. At that moment Juliet wakes up and
cannot control her grief. She takes Romeo’s dagger and stabs herself.
Friar Lawrence finds them both dead and tells both the families what has
really happened. The two families end their fued.
Prologue
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes.
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life:
Whose misadventur’d piteous overthrows,
Do with their death bury their parents’ strife.
Thy fearful passage of their death-mark’d love,
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which but their children’s end naught could remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
The which, if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss our toil shall strive to mend.
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Prologue
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Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
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From forth the fatal loins of these two foes.
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A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life:
Whose misadventur’d piteous overthrows,
Do with their death bury their parents’ strife.
Thy fearful passage of their death-mark’d love,
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
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Which but their children’s end naught could remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
The which, if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss our toil shall strive to mend.
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An Extract from Act 1 Scene 1
Abr:
Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
Sam:
I do bite my thumb, sir.
Abr:
Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
Sam:
Is the law of our side if I say ay?
Greg:
No.
Sam:
No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you sir, but I bite my
thumb sir.
Greg:
Do you quarrel sir?
Abr:
Quarrel sir! No sir.
Sam:
If you do, sir, I am for you: I serve as good a man as
you.
Abr:
No better.
Sam:
Well, sir.
Greg:
Say better: here comes one of my master’s kinsmen.
Sam:
Yes better, sir.
Abr:
You lie.
Sam:
Draw, if you be men.
Romeo’s soliloquy about being lovesick
Romeo: Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love:
Why, then, O brawling love, O loving hate,
O anything of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness, serious vanity,
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire,
sick health,
Still waking sleep, that is not what it is!
This love feel I, that feel no love in this.
Romeo feels all confused about being in love. His soliloquy is
full of opposites. These are called antithesis. Can you underline
these? With your partner see if you can decide what
Shakespeare means each time he uses one of these phrases.
Now can you write your own opposite phrases. You can use a
thesaurus to help you.
e.g. a dark lightness
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Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech
O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you
She is the fairies’ midwife; and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone,
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies,
Athwart men’s noses as they lie asleep.
Her wagon-spokes made of long spinners’ legs;
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers’
The traces, of the smallest spider’s web;
The collars, of the moonshine’s watery beams;
Her whip, of cricket’s bone; the lash, of film;
Her waggoner, a small gray-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm,
Prick’d from the lazy finger of a maid:
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut,
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub
Time out o’mind the fairies’ coachmakers,
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers’ brains, and then they dream of love;
O’er courtiers’ knees, that dream on courtsies straight
O’er lawyers’ fingers, who straight dream on fees;
O’er ladies’ lips, who straight on kisses dream.
The masked ball scene
Shakespeare’s version
Romeo: If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
Juliet:
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much
Which mannerly devotion shows in this.
For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch
And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.
Romeo is trying to persuade Juliet to kiss him and she is flirting
with him. Could you write a modern version of the scene?
Really think about how they could talk to each other.
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An extract from Act 3 Scene 1
Tybalt:
Romeo, the love I bear thee can afford
No better term than this: thou art a villain.
Romeo:
Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee
Doth much excuse the appertaining rage
To such a greeting. Villain am I none –
Therefore farewell; I see thou knowest me not.
Tybalt:
Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries
That thou hast done me; therefore turn and draw.
Romeo:
I do protest in never injured thee,
But love thee better than thou canst devise
Till thou shalt know the reason of my love;
And so, good Capulet, which name I tender
As dearly as mine own, be satisfied.
Mercutio:
O calm dishonourable, vile submission.
‘Alla toccata’ carries it away.
Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk?
Tybalt:
What wouldst thou have with me?
Mercutio:
Good King of Cats, nothing but one of your nine lives that
I mean to make bold withan and as you shall use me
hereafter, dry-beat the rest of the eight. Will you pluck
your sword out of his pilcher by the ears?
Make haste, lest mine be about your ears ere it be out.
Tybalt:
I am for you.
Romeo:
Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up.
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Tybalt
The angry young man
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Romeo
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The lover
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Tybalt
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Romeo
Mercutio
The soliloquy from Juliet’s ‘death’ scene
Shall I not then be stifled in the vault,
To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,
And there die strangle ere my Romeo comes?
Or, if I live, is it not very like
The horrible conceit of death and night,
Together with the terror of the place
As in a vault, an ancient receptacle
Where for these many hundred years, the bones
Of all my buried ancestors are pack’d
Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,
Lies festering in his shroud, where, as they say,
At some hours in the night spirits resort;
Alack, alack, is it not like that I
So early waking, - what with some loathsome smells,
And shrieks like mandrakes’ torn out of the earth
That living mortals, hearing them, run mad;
O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught,
Environed with all these hideous fears?
And make play with my forefathers’ joints?
And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud?
And, in this rage, with some great kinsman’s bone
As with a club, dash out my desperate brains?
O, look! Methinks I see my cousin’s ghost
Seeking out Romeo, that did spit his body
Upon a rapier’s point: stay, Tybalt, stay!
Romeo, I come! This do I drink to thee.
A list of ideas for helping you to create
Juliet’s monologue
You want to show how afraid Juliet was that she was going to
wake up in horrifying place that smelt of death and filled her
mind with frightening images. Use your thesaurus to help you
find words. Look up words like bad and see if you can find
really descriptive words.
Here are some line starters to help you:
I will awaken in __________________________________________
All around me ___________________________________________
The smell of _____________________________________________
I can hear _______________________________________________
My body is ______________________________________________
I feel the ________________________________________________
The _________________ touches my soul and ________________
I can see ________________________________________________
Death will _______________________________________________
They are just a few ideas that might spark off some imaginative ideas.
CREATING LIFE BOXES TO EXPLORE CHARACTERS
In this lesson students will create life boxes based on the specific parts of
the text and present these boxes to the class.
A shoe box is a good container, but other appropriate containers are okay
(pillowcase, cigar box, purse, etc.), particularly if they support character
analysis.
1. Explain the concept of a character life box. A life box is a container of
carefully chosen items that represent a particular character in a play.
The box must contain six to eight things the character might use daily
or have as a keepsake. A line from the play could be cited to justify
each item for able Year 6 or Year 7 pupils. The lines can be either
spoken by the character or by another character in the play. No
photos—items only.
2. Ask pupils to work in pairs. The students pick a character and gather
items to put in their box. They find text to support each item choice
and record a description of the item, an explanation of why it was
chosen, and a corresponding phrase or sentence from the play. This
list will be handed in with the box.
3. The students bring in the finished projects and present them to the
class. They share their items and explanations by holding up and
describing each item and reading or telling what lines of text support
their choice.
CREATING A DIARY
Each pupil will assume the persona of a character in Romeo and Juliet and create an
appropriate diary. The diary entries will reflect the character's unique traits: sex, rank,
and social position, as well as personality and temperament. Through this written
exploration into character, students will deepen their understanding of motivation,
causality, and the conflicts within the play; they will also exercise and expand their
creative writing abilities.
1. Discuss the characters in the play.
2. Gather some of the materials pupils might need to make the diaries themselves. You
might want to get coloured paper (including card stock if available), leftover wool
and ribbons, and other art supplies. Be sure to have both lined and unlined paper.
As you work on this project, you'll want to encourage students to use their artistic
abilities; steer them away from computer-generated fonts.
3.
Explain the assignment to the class. Each pupil should create a diary for the
character of his or her choice and decorate it as appropriate for that character. (It's
good to show a model or two.) Students must write a minimum of five entries; the
entries should show change and growth based upon what each character knows at
certain points in the play.
4. Discuss the various styles of language that pupils might choose: present day
English, a mixture of their own English and common Shakespearean vocabulary,
or some form of poetry—their own or Shakespeare's.
5. Students should include as much information from Shakespeare's text as possible in
their journal entries. They should quote the text directly at least once in each
entry; that quotation can be a jumping off point for a creative exploration of the
scene.
6. After students write a first draft of their initial entry, divide them into small groups
to share their work. They should look for ways both to praise and to improve
the drafts by making helpful suggestions.
7. This is then worked on to produce a finished diary. (If the character dies or
disappears early in the play, the pupils should also create a letter from another
character who has ‘found’ the diary and written an explanation of what has
happened to the character.)
Literacy ideas for teaching other Shakespeare plays
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After researching Shakespeare's life from several resources, compile a
timeline of the major events of his life. Have children recreate journals,
pictures and news articles from this event in the character of someone
who was present.
Brainstorm pairs of characters (ie. Romeo and Juliet, Viola and Sebastian,
Peter Quince and one of his actors, Puck and Oberon, etc) write
Valentine letters to each other in character.
Act out specific scenes from plays in their own words.
Take a direct quote and show it to the class. Have them re-write it in
their own words.
Write advice letters to characters such as Hamlet, Macbeth, Lady
macbeth, etc. warning about making 'good' choices.
Design costumes for different characters.
Research Shakespeare's time and do past, present, and future
comparisons.
Draw maps of areas mentioned in the plays or label a world map to look
at the areas mentioned in relation to where the children live.
Draw favourite scenes from the plays.
Create menus from some of the banquet scenes based on what might
have been eaten then.
Pick characters and give them modern day jobs.
Discuss female characters in the plays and look at characteristics we might
admire and those we might not. Examine stereotypes.
Make posters for The Globe advertising upcoming plays.
Outline a stage on graph paper and using multiplication arrays decide
how many squares items on the stage may take up. ie. a bed may be 6x3
Draw characters in scenes and give them thought bubbles telling what
they are thinking.
Assign parts from adaptations of plays and read out loud as a group.
Switch characters after each scene so everyone gets a chance and stays
interested.
Write letters to characters as other characters.
Create lists of the ingredients that might go into some of the potions and
brews.
Create T-tables of the pros and cons of the actions characters take. ie.
Romeo and Juliet getting married secretly.
Select passages and choral read in groups. Have children be LOUD for
one part, quiet for another, or have them divide themselves according to
low, medium and high voice range.