No doubt, the language of Shakespeare can be puzzling. I love his work, but not reading it. I wanted my kids to appreciate his storytelling without the heavy sigh of boredom trying to decipher every phrase, so I purchased the summarized versions to read. In my opinion, there is no shame in "dumbing it down" to see the value at its core. I'd hate for kids to miss out on the greatness of his work just because they are frustrated dissecting his words. This doesn't mean they get out of attempting to learn the language, as you'll see in my guide.
The book below is what we used and available to purchase on Amazon.
First up was Romeo & Juliet. Nesbit tells the tale in a simple, easy-to-follow way, making it more enjoyable and easier to comprehend. To supplement the play, I added some fun activities and discussion questions.
We started by learning about Shakespeare himself. I always like for the kids to get to know about the author/poet. My guide includes a link to a page about him and a World Wide Web scavenger hunt to discover fun facts about him.
Since we were learning about Romeo and Juliet around Valentine's Day, I included fun and flirty activities, including Would You Rather? and Create a Perfect Partner, where they could dream up their interests, appearance, and personality traits.
Along with some deep-thinking discussion questions, we dissected Romeo's character more and listed some of his red flags. Romeo and Juliet is often romanticized dreamily, but this generation of students has taken off those rose-colored glasses and really noticed the issues between him, Rosaline, and Juliet.
Not wanting to ignore Shakespeare's language completely, I picked out a few famous quotes from the play for the kids to analyze, hoping they would be open to reading more of his work in the future.
Last but not least, we watched the movie. Baz Luhrman's Romeo and Juliet is my all-time favorite. I recommend checking the rating and content to see if it's appropriate for your students before viewing. Luhrman does change the setting, era, and some plot points throughout the movie, but even with the kids only having read the short story version of the play, they could identify the differences, including the ending.
