Romeo and Juliet: Insight Into Ourselves: A 9-12, Language Arts Project
Students use Romeo and Juliet to look at personal responsibility, an individual's freedom of choice, and the effect of one’s actions on others. You may want to print this page as you view the entire Romeo and Juliet Unit Plan.
Higher-Order Thinking Skills
While reading the play, students investigate and gather information about Shakespearean writing and synthesize the information to make analogies to modern-day life. Students use knowledge and take what they have learned from their research and apply it to developing solutions to age-old problems. Teams compare and evaluate information to make decisions using the online Visual Ranking Tool. The teacher elevates student thinking with Curriculum-Framing Questions during classroom discussions throughout the unit. Students use higher-level thinking to demonstrate their understanding of the Essential and Unit Questions in their final oral presentations and products.
Varied Instructional Strategies
A series of activities introduces the unit and help students draw upon their prior knowledge. The teacher uses questioning to spark a discussion centered on the Essential Question: How does literature help us better understand ourselves? Students then rank a list of social offenses that are found within Romeo and Juliet. They discuss and decide which issues they think are serious problems today. They build upon ideas shared in these initial discussions throughout the investigation of the Essential Question.
Graphic Organizers: Visual organizers are incorporated throughout the unit. The unit begins with a group and class-created list to accompany the ranking process. Individual and class charts are added to throughout the unit.
Cooperative Grouping: Students work in collaborative teams to rank social offenses with the Visual Ranking Tool. Students also work in small groups as they research on the Internet, create an action plan, give an oral presentation, and create their supplementary products.
Peer and Teacher Feedback: Students receive peer and teacher feedback while ranking their lists of social offenses with the interactive Visual Ranking Tool. During project work, students meet with the teacher for spot-checks to review their individual action plans and receive feedback. In addition, students are asked to elicit feedback from their audiences after giving their oral presentations. The teacher gives feedback on the final product with the rubric.
Recognition: Students receive recognition when they give their oral presentations to the class and their chosen audience. If they create a Web site, they receive recognition from a wider audience.
Questioning: The teacher begins the unit with questioning in order to tap prior knowledge. The discussion of the Essential, Unit, and Content Questions provide questioning throughout the unit. Small group discussions about literary language, themes and issues, and reflection activities provide questioning, further probing students to think at higher levels.
Modeling: The teacher models by reading important or difficult scenes of the play in class so discussions can take place. Students have a template to model an effective action plan and models of exemplary projects are shared and discussed before project work begins.
Classroom Management: Students work in teams while working with the online thinking tool. Students also work in small groups to complete research and create their oral presentations and final products.
< Back | Page 2 of 2
< Return to Characteristics of Projects