Introduction
Play a video or provide students with a brief summary based on Romeo and Juliet to allow students to head into the assignment having a minor or major understanding on what to expect for the story and/or movie.
Explain to students that they will be identifying the themes of this play/story, try and understand the time period and review how this time period relates and inspires the story of Romeo and Juliet.
Task
Using a great amount of research, group work and and different task to allow students to review the different themes, characters and time period of the tragedy Romeo and Juliet. Students should relate the century of the play to the real life day and age. Characters in the play should all be analyzed based off their family/life and what goes on with them throughout the story. Each major theme should be identified such as love, any conflict and any other themes that may appear. Choose wether students shall recreate the play and a writing assignment on the play or watch the movie after reading the story while having a writing assignment as well. By the end of this assignment, students will have a well understanding on how to identify themes and the influence that literature has.
Process
1). Students should do research on the era that that Romeo and Juliet takes place. They should look for things such as laws during that time, judgement towards marriage, family rules and another other rules that may seem unusual. Students may use online websites, videos or books to conduct their research.
2). Groups with 2-3 or more students shall be formed and each given a different character from the play. Each character should be described with things such as their family, love interest, actions, emotions and more.
3). Have each group, or self work, identify the themes of the play. They may identify all or one specific theme while explaining how they blend into the story, any characters delt in the specific theme and maybe even an example of how they relate to theme.
Evaluation
All things that should be in evaluation is character search, relation during the year based in the play and the year the play was written, making sure everyone in the group works well together and does their part of the assignment while also responding to all the questions and doing all the required parts of the assignments. Students can also do small review on how well they believe each group did based off their presentation or evaluate things such as the difference between the play and the movie.
Conclusion
Go over and identify with the entire class what has been taught and learned from any assignment done related to Romeo and Juliet. Students can interpret how they felt before, during and after reading the play as well. Students can always provide a written prompt on if they liked the play or movie better and why or they may write a prompt on who their favorite character was and why.
Credits
Students MUST credit any of the websites, videos and books that they use to conduct their research. Give full URL links and book name, book author with page numbers.
Teacher Page
To make the understanding of Romeo and Juliet better for students to allow them to have a good development and process for their work. Allow students to also gain a great sense of group work for future work.