Explore themes of discrimination - tensions affecting love, friendship, family
Explore themes of gender discrimination - based on motif of gender (values of masculinity and its relationship with honor, oppressive treatment of women)
Explore themes of discrimination based on power and class/status - for socioeconomic power → rivalry, forbidding intermarriage → leading to violence
Explore how Shakespeare uses language (literary devices) to illustrate the themes above
Highlighted Activities:
Group Performance Activity - students are asked to reinterpret a scene from Romeo and Juliet for the modern day and perform it for the class
Romeo and Juliet vs. West Side Story - students are asked to compare the themes, language, and structures of discrimination in a similar story across different time periods and cultures.
Inner/Outer Status and Power Battle Globe Strategies exploring social status, class, and power dynamics, as well as how language is used to express them.
Summative Essay Assignment asking students to write an essay, comparing the discrimination in Elizabethan society, illustrated through Shakspeare’s language, and in their own lives.
Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI 9-10.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, connotative, and technical meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone (e.g., how the language of a court opinion differs from that of a newspaper).
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.6 Determine an author's point of view or purpose in a text and analyze how an author uses rhetoric to advance that point of view or purpose.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.7 Analyze various accounts of a subject told in different mediums (e.g., a person's life story in both print and multimedia), determining which details are emphasized in each account.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL 9-10.1 Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 9-10 topics, texts, and issues, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.