A Different Way to Teach Romeo and Juliet

          In this article in English Journal, Arkansas teacher Kathryn Hill says that when she tells her ninth graders they’ll be reading Romeo and Juliet, there are groans and heads on desks. At this grade level, students know Shakespeare at a distance, and some believe his work is for people who are smarter, more mature, more cultured. “Why do we have to read those dry, dusty stories that have nothing to do with us?” asked one student.

            “This is why there is an urgent need to rethink how we approach teaching Shakespeare,” says Hill, “and, perhaps more importantly, if we teach Shakespeare at all.” She had her own epiphany watching a production of Richard III in a small theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon in England, seeing for the first time “the power of language and character.” When she began teaching, Hill was determined that her students would make a similar connection between Shakespeare and their lives. In Romeo and Juliet, she wanted students to see in Romeo “the same fiery passion, pensiveness, and rebellion that many of them [experience] as adolescents,” and in Juliet she hoped they would see “the bonds of antiquated, nonsensical traditions, and the destructive cycles of violence and greed – and explore productive ways of fighting against these powers that be.”

            Over the years, Hill hit upon choral reading as a way to bring Shakespeare alive for students and get them to a level of fluency where they truly understood his meaning. Here’s how it works.

            • Introducing the play – Hill’s students read Act I of Romeo and Juliet together and analyze how several movie adaptations of key scenes use the film medium to enhance what Shakespeare wrote.

            • Setting the stage – Students have a choice of studying one of four soliloquies from Act 2: Romeo’s under Juliet’s balcony; Romeo and Juliet’s on the balcony; Friar Laurence’s; and Juliet’s in scene 5. Having introduced the assignment, Hill divides students into heterogeneous groups of 4-5 and groups select which soliloquy they want to study and perform. Students then spend 20-30 minutes working individually with their soliloquy:

-   annotating the text;

-   paraphrasing the speech sentence by sentence;

-   identifying the main point that the speaker is making;

-   circling or highlighting motifs (dream versus reality, blindness, poison, light versus dark imagery);

-   circling key words or phrases indicating the speaker’s tone;

-   marking any shifts in tone, topic, or meaning;

-   noting what we learn about the character who is speaking.

After finishing their individual analyses, groups discuss how they will handle reading their soliloquy out loud. They watch brief video reflections by actors and directors from the Royal Shakespeare Company to model artistic thought and consider their character’s tone, meaning, internal and external conflicts, and key words, phrases, and motifs.

            • Perform and reflect – Each group choral-reads its soliloquy, following each other in the sequence of Act 2, with Hill or a student narrating the events in between. After each performance, classmates ask why the group chose to speak or move in the way they did, and each performer explains elements of their choral read.

“After all the collective laughter and tears, joy and thoughtfulness, and understanding and questioning evoked by the performances,” says Hill, students individually reflect on their soliloquy and write answers to these prompts:

-   Analyze the tone of the speaker – diction, motif, imagery.

-   How does the speech connect with one of the major themes of the play?

-   What do we learn about the character?

-   Explain the artistic choices your group made to emphasize certain words, phrases, or motifs, the speaker’s tone, and internal or external conflicts.

-   How would you revise your performance and why?

“Some of my favorite moments in my classroom occur while students are planning, practicing, performing, and reflecting on their choral reads,” says Hill. “The room buzzes with convivial laughter and kinetic dialogue as students ponder beautiful and curious lines and characters.” She took particular delight when one group of boys practiced reading the line, “But soft! What light through yonder window breaks!” at first giggling at how they had read the words, then realizing how the motif of light seemed especially important to Romeo. “As the boys brought Romeo and Juliet to life with their own voices,” says Hill, “they felt joy because they had fun while wrestling with a complex text.”

            Hill has found the choral reading strategy especially helpful for involving reluctant students and those for whom Shakespeare’s language is challenging. Working with their groupmates preparing for a performance, these students rise to the occasion and contribute thoughtfully to the nuances of tone, drama, and meaning.

            Looking back at the end of the semester, Hill’s students often mention the choral reading as a high point. One student wrote, “I liked how we got to be more creative with this activity. That made it super fun, but I also feel like I learned more about how to read closely. I finally feel like I get the themes and characters.” A particularly shy student wrote, “I personally think that I have grown a huge amount throughout the choral reading process and I think I kind of found a voice with speaking.”

            Hill has several recommendations for teachers considering implementing the choral reading strategy:

-   Allow two periods for performances so there’s room for artistic decision-making and reflective discussions.

-   Instead of asking students to analyze and represent multiple elements of their soliloquy, it may be better to focus on one literary element – for example,  figurative language.

-   This choral reading strategy can work with a variety of texts; Hill has used it with John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address, Brent Staples’s “Black Men in Public Space,” and the speech before the United Nations by Malala Yousafzai, as well as excerpts from novels like The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros.

“Transforming any text can lead to a transformative learning experience for all of our students,” concludes Hill, “because it promotes strong transactions between reader and text, leading to better comprehension, closer reading, symbolic thinking, and deeper learning… Through the lightness and laughter of an activity such as choral reading, students’ hearts and minds are transformed as the power of Shakespeare – once perceived as ephemeral and possibly esoteric – becomes something real and lasting and life-changing. As their perspective transforms, so do they.”

“‘Did My Heart Love Till Now?’: Transforming Romeo and Juliet and Readers Through Choral Reading” by Kathryn Hill in English Journal, March 2020 (Vol. 109, #4, pp. 31-37),

https://bit.ly/2zRnGSK; Hill can be reached at khill@bentonvillek12.org.

(Please Note: The summary above is reprinted with permission from issue #835 of 
The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.)