Romeo+and+Juliet+Speed+Dating

The best idea I had for introducing Romeo and Juliet was "Speed Dating." After carefully introducing the language and reasoning of such to my students, I made a great activity for them to use it. I called it "Speed Dating". I chose several lines (complimentary ones) from R & J, some from Romeo and some from Juliet and wrote them on notecards. I made sure I had enough from both, so they could be paired up.

Then, the girls had the Juliet cards, the boys had Romeo's. They got into an inside/outside circle (Kagen strategy). Boys were in a circle facing qutward, girls were ina circle facing inward. I would play music (from the movie of Romeo and Juliet) and the circles would each move to their left. Once I stopped the music, a girl and boy would be paired up. They would proceed to "deliver" their "pick up lines" to one another, and then rate and interpret the lines together.

Once they had finished, they all passed their cards to the left one time (this way everyone had a new card and a new partner for the next round). I would repeat, as would they. We would "speed date" until everyone had had the opportunity to read each line and rate each line. This does take about 60 min.

Then, everyone would return to their seats and I would tell whomever is holding card #1 (by the way girls had even # cards and boys odd) to deliver their line to the class. We would then get a collective understanding and they would learn how to appropriately deliver the line. We would also collaborate on how the same line may be used or delivered today. By the end of the lesson, the students realized that Romeo was the "Mac Daddy" - as they say.

We had a great time, and it was the best and most fun way I could have introduced the unit.