Mrs. Stubbs's English Blog: Finishing Off Romeo and Juliet

We're almost done with this play! Even though I love it, and love Shakespeare, it's always nice to see daylight at the end of a tunnel as big as this one. We've had a lot of fun, but now we're getting down to business and my goal this week is to finish the play.

Speaking of fun, last week, I did a rhythm activity with them to emphasize Shakespeare's rhythm (Iambic Pentameter). For the first four hours, the whole class was involved and needed my leadership, so I have no video. For my final hour, however, we were short on time, plus the volunteers had no problem needing me to guide them, so I was able to get video of them doing it. Here are a couple of clips of what they did. I didn't get the whole thing because they fell apart in the middle and appeared done, but then they picked it up again. It gave me a laugh:

So, here's the plan for this week and beyond:

This week we will be finishing the play. My goal is to finish it Thursday.
Friday I hope to hand out an acting project; I have a text of the play broken down, in Shakespeare's words, to four scenes. There are enough parts for everyone to either take a part or volunteer to direct and act. I plan to give them Friday and Monday 12/14 to prep for it, then perform for each other on Tuesday 12/15. I'm not expecting memorization, they can have their scripts with them, but I believe that doing this will help them to truly understand Shakespeare's words, and the play as a whole.
I've updated the calendar with the following information, but here it is written out:

The objective test (100 points) will be on Wednesday 12/16. Study guides will be handed out on Friday.
The essay test (60 points) will take place in class from Thursday, 12/17 through Monday, 12/21.

I'll adjust calendars and let you know if things change, but that's how I'm hoping this will all occur. This way, there will be no homework from me over the break. I did offer extra credit for anyone who wants to do an extra book project over a book of their own choosing, but it's not required.

I hope everyone has a great week! Ciao!