THEME TEACHING LESSON SEVEN - GRAFFITI 1

Our purpose in practicing “graffiti” is to integrate what the class knows – its prior knowledge, what it has just learned, and opportunities for further learning within the scope of the unit and its questions. As with all collaborative activities, the graffiti model has the students learn from each other. Instead of sitting still and listening to a teacher, they are actively teaching each other with their ideas and skills from real life, as well as using their knowledge about Romeo and Juliet. The students’ opinions and knowledge are valuable and important to the class’ learning; it isn’t all from the teacher, and activities such as graffiti show this to the learners. Collaborative activities encourage them to take responsibility for their own learning, to take pride in it, and to enjoy it.

The students seat themselves in their “graffiti teams,” Team Romeo, Team Tybalt, Team Mercutio, and Team Benvolio (which evolves into "Team Benvolio-Juliet" in one block. :) ).

The class reviews the Romeo and Juliet artworks or reproductions that they were assigned to provide for this class. Each student stands, shows his chosen piece, and explains how he chose it and where he found it (he made it, he Googled it, etc.).

Each group receives a piece of posterboard and a question. The group writes its question and team name at the top of the posterboard. The group discusses its question and writes the answer underneath the question. After three to five minutes on each question, the groups rotate the posterboards, and each group repeats the discussion-and-answering process, writing its answer underneath the previous group’s answer. The process is repeated until each group has answered each question and has its original questions in it hand. (Each group will submit these handwritten “session notes,” (which will be displayed in our classroom), however, these notes will not be formally assessed.)

When all the questions have reached their original group answers, each group reads its original question and then presents the collaborative answers of the whole class. As time allows, students summarize the answers on the board.

QUESTIONS:

1. What are the loyalties of Juliet the daughter? Whom does she love? Does she love any one person more than another? Who is her family? What do you think that the loyalties of Juliet the wife would be? Whom would she love? Would she love any one person more than another? Who would be her family?

2. Summarize Lord’s Capulet’s nature. What does his nature indicate about his perceptions of Juliet’s loyalties, and his expectations of his family’s loyalties? Are Lord Capulet’s notions of “loyalties” more or less “elastic” (bendable, changeable, open to interpretation) than those of Lady Capulet? Are Juliet’s notions on loyalty more like her mother’s or her father’s? Why do you think so?

3. Summarize the personal and professional relationships that the servants have with their masters. Are there bonds of loyalty to the masters? If so, cite events in the play that show this. If you discern no bond of loyalty between the servants and masters, explain why you think that there are no such bonds. How could the play’s servant and master relationships be improved (if at all)?

4. As a group, choose a character that you can agree on as your “favorite” or “most likable.” Why did you choose this character? What actions has s/he done that has made him or her likable? Has the character done anything that you have disliked? Cite specific instances that indicate this character’s ideas on family, loyalty and love. Do these instances have anything to do with why you consider him or her your favorite or most likable character?