Shakespeare: Tragedy, Comedy and Metaphor

            “The poem, the song, the picture is only water drawn from the well of people 

            and it should be given back to them in a cup of beauty so that they may drink—

            and in drinking, understand themselves.”

                                                                              --Lorca

This unit will give students a chance to look at Shakespeare from a personal and cultural perspective.  The class will break of the structure of the play Romeo and Juliet and discuss how metaphor and symbol, plot and theme work in conjunction with the development of characters and ideas.  Ultimately, students will need to answer what “Romeo and Juliet” represents to our culture and what it personally means to them.  Students will need to reflect on personal experience and apply it to the play.

Unit Learning goal: Students will demonstrate an understanding of tragedy and Romeo and Juliet by evaluating the characters and their motivations in the play and writing a short persuasive essay using evidence from the text to discuss who is to blame for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet.  

Scale/Rubric relating to learning goal:

4 – The student can evaluate characters and their motivations and come up with multiple interpretations based on evidence of why many characters are to blame for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet.

3 – The student can evaluate the characters and their motivations in the play and writing a short persuasive essay using evidence from the text to discuss who is to blame for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet

2 – With some direction/help from the teacher the student can evaluate the characters and their motivations in the play and writing a short persuasive essay using evidence from the text to discuss who is to blame for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet

1 – Even with help from the teacher the student is unable to evaluate the characters and their motivations in the play and writing a short persuasive essay using evidence from the text to discuss who is to blame for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet

Objectives (smaller chunks of overall goal) and suggested time periods

Students will be able to

• 1. Understand the conventions of Shakespearean drama and Tragedy

  2. Analyze Shakespearean language, including word play and blank verse.

  3. Analyze characters, including character foils (dramatic foils) and the tragic hero

  4. Identify and analyze soliloquies, asides, and allusions

  5. Analyze cultural experiences reflected in works of world literature

  6. Determine a theme and analyze its development

  7. Understand and use parallel structure

Knowledge:

• 1. List the five elements of tragedy

  2. List the five elements of a tragic hero

  3. Define theme, plot, setting, foreshadow, oxymoron, soliloquy, personification, dramatic foil, metaphor, symbol, simile

  4. Give the four elements of a sonnet and a brief description of traditional sonnet themes

  5. Describe how sonnets are used in Romeo and Juliet

  6. Define various vocabulary words from the play

  7. List three things the prologue of the play does

Comprehension:

• 1. Identify a metaphor within a line of poetry

  2. Identify the rhyme scheme of a English sonnet and break a sonnet into quatrains and couplets

10) Give a brief description of all the characters and their roles in the play

   11) Given a line of dialogue identify the speaker

   12) Outline the plot and break in up into exposition, inciting event,    

         rising action, climax, falling action and catastrophe (or resolution)

   13) Summarize each scene into a headline

Application

• 1. Demonstrate an understanding of a scene in a drawing

  2. Demonstrate a relation of characters to contemporary times through a simulation called “TOO HOT FOR SHAKESPEARE: ROMEO AND JULIET LIVE ON THE JERRY SPRINGER SHOW”

  3. Demonstrate an understanding of characters and acting techniques by writing out a script (including the lines, subtext, emotion or tone, and blocking) and acting out the scene from memory

  4. Demonstrate an understanding of the play by writing journal entries and in-class writing assignments including a Dear Abbey Letter, interviews with citizens of Verona, Wedding Vows between Romeo and Juliet, personal responses, in-class presentations on characters.   

Analysis

• 1. Write a persuasion paper on Romeo and Juliet.

  2. In an essay compare and contrast a Shakespeare Comedy to a Shakespeare Tragedy.

  3. In an essay discuss with evidence from the text who is responsible for the deaths of “the star-crossed” lovers

Synthesis

• 1. Write a sonnet

Essential Concepts: 

What does Romeo and Juliet mean to our culture?  Why does everyone know it? What does Romeo and Juliet mean to you?  What is the meaning of suicide in the play? How does Shakespeare create a tragedy out of a typical love-comedy?  How does Shakespeare retell this story from its original? What is gong on with the family feud and the various twists on the meaning of Love?  Why do so many characters have to die? What are some of the differences between drama and fiction?

Essential Questions:

Is Love Stronger than Hate?

What is the difference between Duty and Love?

Is there a love so strong that it diminishes the will to live?