Teaching Ideas and Units - Teaching Units

Exploring drama as a teaching methodology: Romeo and Juliet

Anne Kostaras

Anne first presented the activities below as part of a highly successful TATE workshop.

Aim: To participate as teacher-learners in a lesson devised to deepen students’ understanding of Romeo and Juliet by providing a range of creative teaching-learning contexts.

Overview
Warm-up activity
Teacher-in-role
Mantle of the expert
Still image
Teacher-in-role as nurse. Blanket enrolement of students
Conclusion and the power of ritual
Writing-in-role
Reading-in-role

 

Overview

We will build the context, using still-image, in-role writing, achieve narrative through teacher- in- role, blanket-enrolement and mantle of the expert. In-role-writing may be the beginning of reading- in- role and an introduction to monologues. Ritual is used to end the workshop.

In this workshop teacher-in-role is used in three different ways with three distinct purposes The first teacher-in-role is as the Prince as written by Shakespeare. This serves to provide exposure to Shakespearian language. Teacher-in-role as the minstrel requires students to think about the town, its people and current events. Students enrolled as citizens of Verona, inform the visiting minstrel of current events, therefore restating their prior knowledge. Teacher in Role as the nurse gives students an insight into the personality of the nurse, her role in the deaths of the young lovers, how she feels, her regrets, her fears. The nurse becomes a fellow mourner and shares with the citizens the same emotions at the tomb. This deepens students’ understanding of some aspects of this character, reinforces their knowledge of the play, intensifies their emotional connection to Romeo and Juliet and paves the way for the ritual which ends the workshop.

The teacher tells students what we hope to achieve today and reminds them of the Drama Rules, such as: How to recognise Teacher-in-role, that we are going to work in role sometimes and that we will hold some things to be true for the purposes of the lesson; believing in and agreeing to the imagined context.

(I always set aside a small part of the room for students who wish to withdraw from the drama, or indeed if I feel they should withdraw for any reason. This is a silent space and students may re-enter the drama — in — action as desired.)

Warm Up Activity

Students select from a box of scarves. There are two colours, gold and purple. All those with purple decide as a group how they would like to wear these scarves, and the ‘gold group’ does likewise. (giving the class a sense of division into two camps like the Montagues and the Capulets.)

Students are asked how the wearing of the two colours might reflect the play.

On a piece of paper each student writes down three things they know about Romeo and Juliet, the play. They screw up the piece of paper. Gold group forms a circle, purple group likewise. The students throw these balls of paper to others in the circle, endeavouring not to let the paper escape the circle. (approx 45 secs) At the end of this activity each student should have a piece of paper, which they smooth out and the purple group reads what they have to gold group and vice versa.

Teacher comments and collects the paper. If nothing is said about two feuding families, the teacher introduces this and narrates the introduction to the next activity.

Narration:

So Romeo and Juliet is a story of star-crossed lovers, two young people whose love and marriage are doomed as soon as they have begun. Their families, the Montagues and the Capulets, have maintained a blood feud in Verona, Italy, for many years and members of each family have been killed by members of the other in a never-ending cycle of murder for revenge.

The teacher instructs purple and gold groups to line up in two lines facing each other and about a metre apart. Teacher explains (s)he would like the purple group to imagine they are from the Capulet family and the gold group represents the Montague. Each is a youth armed with a sword and each is antagonistic towards the other. Students are told, ‘We are going to build a dispute in role now. Take ten seconds to think of why you carry this hate for the other group and have a sentence in your head.’ Teacher can give some examples to help out, e.g. ‘My uncle’s blood is on your hands’, ‘You do spy on us whenever we are out’, ‘I will have revenge’ ‘You give us trouble in public places’ ‘A curse upon your house.’ etc. Beginning at one end of the lines the nominated voice speaks his/her sentence, raises his/her sword and freezes.

Result is that two lines are in a still image of aggression with swords at the ready. (They can repeat these sentences/add them to each other and build it to a cacophony if you wish. Teacher may need to coach from the side to help build the noise level so that it sounds appropriately aggressive and threatening.)

Teacher-in-role

Enter Prince (teacher-in-role) to bring about the silence with:

Rebellious subjects, enemies of peace,
Profaners of this neighbour-stained steel,
Will they not hear? What ho, you men, you beasts,
Throw your mistempered weapons to the ground,
And hear the sentence of your moved prince.
Three civil brawls bred the airy word,
By thee, old Capulet, and Montague,
Have thrice disturbed the quiet of our streets.
If ever you disturb our streets again
Your lives will pay the forfeit of the peace.
For this time all the rest depart away:
You, Capulet shall go along with me;
And Montague, come you this afternoon
To know our farthest pleasure in this case,
To old Freetown, our common judgement-place.
Once more, on pain of death, all men depart.

Prince ‘disappears’ when teacher removes the cape. Teacher debriefs here with the students. A conversation about how it felt, how the prince feels, whether he has a right to interfere, how they may resolve disputes, how the brawling affects the town and so on, could comprise the debriefing.

Teacher narrates that indeed these two families were enemies and there seemed no hope of there ever being peace between them.

Mantle of the expert

Teacher-in-role as wandering minstrel, visiting Verona, asks the youths to tell her/him about the town of Verona. (S)he wants to write a song (perhaps commissioned by the prince?) about a personality in the town, or about the town itself. The minstrel may be seeking information about what the town is proud of, what it celebrates etc, or about the two families and about the rumour she has heard about the masquerade and that a youth called Romeo is in love with Rosalind and about the young girl Juliet who is going to marry Paris etc. (Through Mantle of the Expert, and students enrolled as the all- knowing youths, the events of the ball are established; Romeo and Juliet are in love!!)

Still Image

Purple group makes a still image of a wedding (if the group is too big, divide it in half and get two images.)

Gold group makes a still image of a funeral.

Teacher and students look at each of the images carefully, studying the body language. Where are the eyes? Where are the hands, feet etc? Teacher leads this conversation.

Indicating the wedding, teacher says, "This is what Romeo and Juliet wanted, but [to the funeral] this is what they got."

In groups of four or five, make 3 still frames of how it got to this, the funeral.

(Meanwhile teacher sets up a small scene of the tomb)

Students ‘rehearse’ the still images beginning with the first, melting into the second and then the third. As they do so each student gives each still image a title in his/her head. When it is time to share these images with the other group, a volunteer or group-nominated student will call the title of each image.

Groups look at all the still images and comment. (Narration is further developed)

Teacher- in-role as nurse. Blanket enrolement of students as mourners at the funeral.

Nurse confesses that though there is a rumour about, that the feuding has caused the death of these two lovely young people, there is more to this story. She confesses that she has been unwise, she encouraged Juliet’s love of Romeo, she kept a secret from the family she had worked for for many years, she held the ladder to the balcony so that Romeo could enter Juliet’s room on the night of their secret wedding, etc etc etc. and because of her and Friar Lawrence, these lovely children are dead etc etc.

Conclusion and the power of ritual

Nurse ‘disappears’ by removing her apron. Teacher, with very quiet voice maintains the solemnity of this context as (s)he asks students to line up silently as they did in the ‘feuding lines’ Each ‘pair’ removes their scarves and maintaining the atmosphere, each pair decides what they will say as they approach the tomb as they link, tie, join the two colours to symbolically represent the peace between the Montagues and the Capulets and with solemnity the colours are laid on the tomb of Romeo and Juliet. As the linked colours are laid on the tomb, each pair speaks a few simple words. Students do not need any coaching from the side here, they instinctively say such things as, ‘Too young’, ‘The curse has lifted from our houses’, ‘Star-crossed lovers together now’, ‘You have brought peace to Verona’ etc.

Teacher puts on the cape and as teacher-in-role as the Prince, says:

A gloomy peace this morning with it brings.
The sun, for sorrow will not show his head.
Go hence, to have more talk and these sad things.
Some shall be pardon’d and some punished;
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo."

I always end the workshop here. However there are a number of opportunities for writing in role during the course of this/these lesson(s). Without writing the whole workshop talks about an hour and a quarter.

Writing-in-role

As a mourner, students write to a relative, to Antonia, or Viola who live in a neighbouring town about the events that have taken place in the last 24 hours.

Reading-in-role

Read a selection or display them. (Develop these later into monologues)

These teaching strategies can be applied to any text. They engage students in an active, interesting way and allow teachers and students to go straight to the heart of the work. Anyone can teach like this, take it a little at a time and confidence grows. Good luck.

Anne Kostaras
Drama teacher