Today we had a Socratic Seminar on a simple but not-so-simple question: who is most culpable for the deaths that happen in Romeo and Juliet? Each table had a chance to make an argument, and then...
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What our classroom did in previous days, weeks, months, even years…
Final Speech Analysis
We looked at the final soliloquy in the play, when Romeo loses all sense of rationality and makes a horrible decision based primarily on emotion. We examined how Shakespeare develops this idea...
Final Speech
Students today began the final textual analysis of Romeo and Juliet, looking at Romeo's final soliloquy: In faith, I will. Let me peruse this face. Mercutio's kinsman, noble County Paris! What said...
AOW and Workshop
Students today reviewed the AOW marking from the last article. By this time, students should be getting nothing As and Bs on that assignment -- it's like a basketball player shooting free throws. We...
Benchmark and the Door
Today students took the district-mandated benchmark test. Instead of shifting into a test schedule, though, we simply ran the test through students' English class, which means we did not make any...
Doubts
Students today looked at Juliet's last long soliloquy in which she contemplates the consequences of taking the potion that Friar Laurence gave her: Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again. I...
Project Work
Students today worked on their Romeo and Juliet projects. It was not something I'd planned on doing, but as I was looking at students' work as they came to me in the morning before school, I...
Timeline and Explosion
Today we looked at the timeline of the play for a few minutes at the start of class: Students were surprised at the realization that it's only Monday night and everything began Sunday morning....
Connections
We began today by going over the latest article of the week, looking at a complete of connections that I wanted students to make within the text. Afterward, we returned to the work of tracking down...
Continuing with Echoes and Connections
Students who were not taking the PSAT today continued working on the same work from yesterday in which we examine various passages in the play to see how Shakespeare is having his characters echo...
Gallery Walk
Today, we looked at several passages in 3.2 and 3.3 in a super-spaced, socially-distanced gallery walk, which we held in the library: Students examined various passages, and after working their way...
Writing CMs
Students began working today on the commentary for their paragraphs connecting "Decoration Day" and Romeo and Juliet. Most students managed to complete very, very rough drafts of the two paragraphs....
