Trying to Find the Love

I begin student teaching on March 22nd! While I am very excited, I am also a little terrified. One source of anxiety is Shakespeare. I am not sure about the rest of you, but I rely heavily (or completely) on SparkNotes to understand his plays. I took an entire class on his plays and spent countless hours in the library reading the side by side translations to get through it. While I love the concepts and ideas of some of his plays, I can't understand his language. But as an English teacher, I will inevitable have to find some Shakespearean love before I can teach it. Well, the time has come to find my love. I will have two 9th grade classes at Liberty, and I have to teach them Romeo and Juliet. While I don't think I will fall in love with Shakespeare or his language, I hope I can inspire myself to find the love within interesting, exciting, and creative lessons. In an effort to let my freshly painted fingernails dry, I set off to do some low-key research. My efforts were rewarded with some great websites!

The Fogler Shakespeare Library
This site is dedicated to advancing knowledge and the arts, and they have entire sections dedicated to teaching various Shakespeare plays. The above link is to their Romeo and Juliet section, and it includes two standards-based lesson plans, an audio recording of the play, some video clips, and a short blip about the language of the play. These aren't stellar ideas, but they are something to build on! There are also teaching ideas for the other plays, and most ideas can be adapted to work with many plays.

Romeo and Juliet on Web English Teacher
This website is a new discovery, and I have fallen in love. It is an entire site dedicated to making the job of the English teacher easier. It has multiple sections on everything from young adult literature to grammar and journalism. It is essentially a collection of links that lead you to resources. Their Romeo and Juliet section has TONS of great ideas, many of which are creative and a little outside the box, which is right up my teaching alley!

How to READ Shakespeare!
Apparently, it is possible. This is a guide on how to effectively read Shakespeare play. Great tool for teachers and students, so I might make copies and spend a day explaining how to read him. Everyone needs to be reminded how to be an effective reader, especially with such confusing stuff!

 How to Make the Magic Happen
This is a document designed for a drama class, but it has objectives aligned with interesting activities! I don't want to just read and discuss, and this resource provides a more varied plan. And it is FREE! Nothing with objectives is ever free. Also within this 24 page document are vocab words, and an examination of verse and prose in Romeo and Juliet.

Teaching Shakespeare
This is a PowerPoint presentation that looks like it was assembled by a pre-service teacher. But boy, does it have some good stuff in it! It asks me, the teacher, to examine why I am teaching this play and how I am teaching it before it gives some great activities! Very insightful, and it is even research based!

Teaching Romeo and Juliet
This site has some really great discussion questions and a few teaching ideas.


There they are: Some helpful resources for teaching Romeo and Juliet that are now archived forever. You will probably see quite a few of these posts concerning this play and The Importance of Being Earnest (which I am WAY excited to teach to my AP Juniors!) over the next few weeks. This blog is a great way for me to keep track of my resources so when I am frantically planning over spring break I don't have to do as much searching. Happy hump day!