Romeo and Juliet - Prologue Performance English 8L

Recently, my English 8 class was introduced to a new unit on William Shakespeare and Romeo & Juliet. Usually, this begins with group performances of the prologue. Students were able to perform these at home and upload their videos to Flipgrid, where we could all view each other's performances and have a laugh! 

My philosophy of education has always included communication and creativity. Interaction between students is by far the most rewarding part of my job. As we all let go of our social pull during these trying times, I am finding myself constantly challenged with attempting to gain that creative connection with my students through other means. In a letter to his graduate students at Syracuse University, author and professor George Saunders writes, "Fifty years from now, people the age you are now won't believe this ever happened (or will do the sort of eye roll we all do when someone tells us something about some crazy thing that happened in 1970.)" This is the reason I am trying to inspire my students to film, record, and write as much as possible right now. In 30 years, students will look back at these videos and think, "Remember when we were stuck at home and had to dress up with our parents and record that prologue from Romeo & Juliet during that global pandemic?!"

Experiences like these may be seen as a bit silly and mundane now but will inevitably take on new meaning in the future. If I were able to provide any advice to students, it would be to record as much as you can through any means throughout this crisis. Record everything.

A few performances of the Romeo & Juliet prologue by English 8L can be viewed here.