ROMEO AND JULIET, 1884
A painting by Frank Dicksee
Over the past few weeks, something really cool has been happening in the eighth grade that reflects our Middle School learning philosophy and provides us with a snapshot of students' classroom experiences. The eighth grade has been studying Romeo and Juliet as part of their coming-of-age curriculum. Grade 8 English teachers Loryn Croot and Lindsay Fauth arranged for a presentation of segments the Grades 11 and 12 play, Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet), for the eighth grade. Director Sonya Baehr described the play and the scenes that they were going to watch, which were related to Romeo and Juliet. Following the scenes, the Upper School actors answered questions about Shakespearean language and understanding the meaning in the delivery of the lines. In addition to being extremely fun and funny, the effect of watching students enjoying and speaking about Shakespeare was very powerful for the eighth grade.
It was a perfect kickoff to their film project, in which small groups chose scenes from Romeo and Juliet to interpret, write about, perform, and record in a short video. Over the past few weeks, the halls of Poly have been filled with mini-film crews looking for balconies and filming fight scenes. The level of engagement and investment in the project results in a much higher understanding of the text of the play. Shakespeare's language is incredibly rich and subtle and requires a great deal of work. Simply decoding the plot misses the whole point of studying Shakespeare at this age. Through the film project, students apply their full energy and enthusiasm towards truly understanding the language of the play and forming their own interpretations of the roles.
For me, seeing excited eighth graders arguing over the best way to portray a character and how to produce the best scene is really, really amazing. When motivated and focused, the creative and intellectual product that 13-year-olds are capable of is really impressive. Accordingly, the papers written about the interpretations were clearly enhanced by the heightened level of investment that students had in the project. In addition, the project is a great example of the benefits of technology integration given the critical thinking skills that were involved in the filming and editing as well as secondary technology skills that were learned ( Head of Middle School: Planning for This Year and Next Year. The Poly Pulse, 5/5/08).
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