What storm is this?Year level: 10–11

Unit of work contributed by Kristi Johansen, Tennant Creek High School, NT

Juliet.Copyright Photolibrary.

About the unit

Unit description

This unit uses a scaffolded approach to bring students to independently retell an aspect of the story of Romeo and Juliet using their own languages and cultural stories, both traditional and popular. The unit is designed to draw on students’ interests, knowledge and skills to maximise their engagement with the text. Drama and visual art activities are used to allow low-skilled readers to access the text and demonstrate their understanding.

Knowledge, understandings, skills, values

  • Students engage with Shakespearean language and the idea of universal themes.
  • Students consider the relevance of Shakespearean plays to contemporary audiences, especially in the local context.
  • Students investigate adaptations of Shakespearean plays and develop adaptations for local contexts.
  • Students construct a text for dramatic presentation.

Focus questions

  • What are universal themes?
  • What are the universal themes of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet?
  • What are the similarities between the world of Shakespeare’s play and this community?

Resources

Digital curriculum resources

/ R10561Romeo + Juliet, 1996: A dangerous solution
R10560Romeo + Juliet, 1996: Capulets and Montagues

Internet sites

  • Shakespeareaninsulter: (select ‘Insult Me’)
  • William Shakespeare Elizabethan dictionary: (select ‘William Shakespeare Dictionary’)
  • SMS translation of Romeo and Juliet:
  • Bell Shakespeare’s archived education materials: (select ‘Education’)

Print

Books used in the unit

  • Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare (your preferred edition)
  • Manga Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare, edited by Richard Appignanesi, illustrated by Sonia Leong, Self Made Hero, 2007

Other useful reference texts

  • The heart of my mystery: experiencing Shakespeare in the classroom,D Hopwood, N Hennessy, Cambridge University Press, 2006
  • Teaching poetry writing to adolescents, JL Tsujimoto, National Council for Teachers of English, 1988

Other resources

Equipment

  • Butcher’s paper and coloured pens
  • Digital camera

Film

  • Excerpts from blockbusters such as ET and Titanic
  • Romeo + Juliet, directed by Baz Luhrmann, 1996
  • Romeo and Julietadvertisement, directed by David La Chapelle, 2006

Attached printable resource

The learning resource referred to in the unit of work is available for you to modify, print and use in your own teaching and learning context:

  • Moved synopsis

Teaching the unit

Setting the scene

Resources

  • Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare (your preferred edition)
  • Excerpts from blockbusters such as ET and Titanic
  • Shakespeareaninsulter: (select ‘Insult Me’)
  • SMS translation of Romeo and Juliet:
  • Romeo + Juliet, directed by Baz Luhrmann, 1996
  • Romeo and Julietadvertisement, directed by David La Chapelle, 2006
  • William Shakespeare Elizabethan dictionary: (select ‘William Shakespeare Dictionary’)
  • Moved synopsis (page 9)
  • Butcher’s paper and coloured pens

Teaching and learning activities

Universal themes

Explore the idea of a ‘blockbuster’and look briefly at relatively contemporary examples such as ET and Titanic. Introduce the concept of ‘universal themes’ and explain that Romeo and Juliethas themes that are common to stories from different cultures, countries and times. Identify some of those themes.

Explore the language of Shakespeare through an insults exercise. Display the table found at: (select ‘Insult Me’). Follow the instructions found on that page. Students rehearse chosen insults then hurl them at a partner.

What we know

As a class, students discuss what they already know about the story of Romeo and Juliet. Collect single words, phrases, song titles, parts of lyrics onto a large sheet of butcher’spaper for classroom display. Pulling these snippets together will help build a broad ‘class knowledge’ about the play. Students discuss and document similar stories they have been told or experienced.

Prologue exploration

Before undertaking the following activities, please check with a community member or cultural adviser about the appropriateness of the language and approach, considering the sensitivities in some communities and the high incidence of suicide in some places.

Students read the prologue from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

Students translate the SMS text message below, which is a synopsis of the play found at:

‘FeudTween2hses--Montague& Capulet. RomeoM falls_<3w/_ JulietC@mary Secretly Bt R kils J's Coz&isbanishd. J fakes Death. As Part of Plan2b-w/R Bt_leter Bt It Nvr Reachs Him. Evry1confuzd--- bothLuvrs kil Emselves.’ (© Guardian News and Media Ltd 2010)

Students view David La Chapelle’s advertisement for denim jeans.

Students view the prologue of Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo +Juliet.

‘Killer’ vocabulary exercises

Using the William Shakespeare Elizabethan dictionary, present students with words or phrases that may be unfamiliar to them. In groups, students make predictions about what the word or phrase means, then look it up in a dictionary. The small groups put their words or phrases into sentences and read them to the class.

Moved synopsis

This activity involves summarising, then acting out, the play. Students are called into a circle as a character in the play and act out their parts, as the teacher or a student reads the lines or gives a general summary of the plot.

Refer to Bell Shakespeare’s ‘Moved synopsis’ (page 9) for more guidance in planning and running this activity in your classroom.

Reading and drawing

Students collaboratively read the prologue. The teacher then re-reads the prologue as students draw images that come to mind as they are being read to.

Text exploration

Students read through the text and then underline certain words (eg verbs or adjectives) or phrases. The class then discusses the meaning of words or phrases and why the writer chose to use them.

After reading activities

As a class, students discuss the relevance of the text to their own context, using butcher’s paper to document their ideas. Use graphic organisers to record and display these responses.

Assessment

Have the students construct a rap version of the prologue. Support the students as they brainstorm ideas then compose, assemble, edit and present their rap prologue to the class. This activity could be conducted as a class collaborative construction or as a small group activity.

Investigating

Resources

  • Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare (your preferred edition):
  • Act 1, scene 1
  • Act 2, scenes 3 and 5
  • Manga Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare, edited by Richard Appignanesi, illustrated by Sonia Leong, Self Made Hero, 2007
  • Romeo + Juliet, directed by Baz Luhrmann, 1996

Teaching and learning activities

When the unit was originally taught, two community Elders were invited into the classroom at this point and interviewed by students about cultural practices, stories or ceremonies around the theme of love or the power of plants, herbs and stones.Depending on your teaching context and community, it may be valuable to invite local community Elders to participate in a similar activity.

Viewing

As a class, view Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet.

Storyboarding

Discuss the Luhrmanninterpretation with the class.Draw on students’ own knowledge and context, especially in terms of setting, appearance and characterisation.

Students then storyboard their own account of the play, re-naming places and characters to fit their own context. This should be a large storyboard that can be displayed on the walls of the classroom. It will be used later in the unit.

Reading and exploring

Text exploration

The focus here is on the script’s language. Students translate some phrases into their own language, if relevant, and then into Standard Australian English.

Divide students into small groups to act out a chosen scene, with one student directing the group. Groups then perform the scene to the class.

After reading activities

As a class, discuss how the scene would look if it was set in your local context.

How would the language change?

What would be said and who would say it?

As a class, draft the scene in its new setting, then edit until agreement is reached on the final draft.

Motivations

In small groups, students discuss the motivations behind the actions of Friar Lawrence and the Nurse. Groups then choose between Act 2, scene 3 or Act 2, scene 5 of the play.In their groups, students explore the language and themes in their scene. After this, they respond independently to one of the following tasks.

  • Ask students if they know a story of, or know of someone who is knowledgeable about, plants, herbs and stones, particularly how they can affect people. Write a story with this person as the main character.
  • Do students know a person like the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet? What advice would she or he give about love and marriage? Re-write Act 2, scene 5 with this person as the Nurse and include her or his advice.

Assessment

Have the students create an assessment folio using pieces completed in the course of the unit: drawings, storyboards, group-negotiated texts, and photographs of drama workshops or exercises.

The independent written work above (focused on Act 2, scene 3 or Act 2, scene 5 of the play) would be another good assessment piece.

Bringing it all together

Resources

  • Student folios, written work and the class storyboard created during the unit

Teaching and learning activities

Reading and viewing

Students view other students’ folios and read each other’s work or have it read to them.

Discussion

Using the classroom storyboard, discuss with students the developing interpretationand establish if and where any of the work from their folios would fit into the class storyboard.

Assembling and composing

Have students add relevant work, drawings, photographs, words, phrases, script extracts and stories to the large, wall-sized storyboard. Using the student work, create and edit a working script as a class for production in the following semester.The storyboard could also inform further units of work. For example, the production could incorporate advertising and promotion, set and costume design, and construction.

Communicating

Resources

  • Class script, advertising material, costumes and sets developed in the previous section, or materials needed to develop these further

Teaching and learning activities

As the script is finalised, students divide into working units for a six-week block of pre-production activities. These could include acting chorus and leading roles, dance, music, sound, lighting, set construction, costume and make-up, advertising and promotion.

The production can then be presented to the community as appropriate, for example under the stars on the school’s oval or in another appropriate venue.

Writer:Kristi Johansen

The material in this unit of work may contain links to internet sites maintained by entities not connected to Education Services Australia Ltdand which it does not control (‘Sites’).

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© Education Services Australia Ltd, 2010, except where indicated otherwise

What storm is this? by Kristi Johansen, Tennant Creek High School, NT 1

Moved synopsis

Introduction

The term ‘moved synopsis’ has been developed by Bell Shakespeare to describe an interactive storytelling activity in which students act out a short synopsis of the play.

We encourage teachers to write their own script for this exercise and where possible include elements relevant to the particular group of students.

Warwick University drama educator Jonathon Neelands calls this approach the ‘Shakespeare whoosh’.

The point of the ‘moved synopsis’ or ‘Shakespeare whoosh’ activity is twofold:

  1. students start to interact by participating in a safe and entertaining activity
  2. through participation, students learn the story of the play.

Creating your script

The Bell Shakespeare website contains resources in which you may find short synopses of most of Shakespeare’s plays. These can be adapted into a script for a moved synopsis. Alternatively you can do an internet search of the synopsis or work from a published copy of the play.

The key to the moved synopsis is to work at the level of interaction that encourages and enthuses your students about the story. What will drive them to want to know what happens next?

Cue cards can be used for a few words or a short line of dialogue for the students to read out at the relevant point in the narrative.We have found that students who are confident readers but not necessarily confident actors will engage with simple actions while reading a line of script from a cue card held in front of them. Reluctant readers might be more comfortable without cue cards, or with one- or two-word cue cards.

Your script should be in short sections for each scene or section of a scene that contains important action and dialogue.

So how do you do it?

With your narrative script of the story in hand, invite your students to form a circle with you. Invite students to come into the circle to be the characters as they appear in the narrative. With a play such as The tempest, you might invite students into the circle to create the boat. For A midsummer night’s dream students might create the forest of trees and the sounds of the forest at night.

© 2010 Bell Shakespeare

Example

A midsummer night’s dream

We(everyone in the circle) are in Athens and the duke (select a student who comes into the circle and poses like a duke) called Theseus is preparing for his marriage to Hippolyta(select another student), who is queen of the Amazons.

This will be accompanied by a four-day festival of pomp and entertainment. Theseus calls his master of the revels(select another student),Philostrate, to find suitable amusements for the occasion (encourage other students to mime the actions of various acts) – a juggler, dancers, circus acrobats, opera singers.

An Athenian nobleman (select another student) called Egeus marches into Theseus’s court with his daughter (select another student),Hermia, and two young men (select another two students),Demetrius and Lysander.

As you read the next section encourage the students to act out what you say about their character.

Egeus wants his daughter Hermia to marry Demetrius. Demetrius loves Hermia, but Hermia is in love with the other guy, Lysander, and she refuses to marry Demetrius. Egeus asks for Theseus to allow the full penalty of law to fall on Hermia’s head if she disobeys him. Theseus gives Hermia until his wedding to consider her options, warning her that disobeying her father’s wishes could result in her being sent to a convent or even executed.

(Exit all but Lysander and Hermia.)Hermia and Lysander plan to escape Athens the following night and marry in the house of Lysander’s aunt, a long way from Athens.

Enter Hermia’s friend Helena (select another student).Hermia and Lysander tell Helena of their intention to elope. (Exit Hermia and Lysander.)

Helena has always been in love withDemetrius (recall student playing Demetrius), and still loves him even though he dissed her once he met Hermia. Helena tells Demetrius of Hermia and Lysander’s plan, hoping that she will win him back. Time passes and it is evening. Demetrius stalks into the woods after his intended bride and her lover; Helena follows behind him.

© 2010 Bell Shakespeare

© Education Services Australia Ltd, 2010, except where indicated otherwise

What storm is this? by Kristi Johansen, Tennant Creek High School, NT 1