Romeo & Juliet - Prologue

LO: To understand the effect of the prologue

Date: Monday 8th February 2016

Starter – Twenty questions

• Your job is to get one of the people who has just been sent out to say the code word: ‘Jammy Dodgers’.

• The first one of them to say it will receive an achievement point, as will the person who gets them to do it.

• Rule 1: You must not use the word yourself. • Rule 2: Only one person at a time may ask them a

question.• Rule 3: You can’t use the words biscuit or jam.

You have just experienced...

What is it?

DRAMATIC IRONY

Dramatic irony - when the audience knows something that a character in the play does not.

Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life; Whose misadventured piteous overthrows Doth with their death bury their parents' strife. The fearful passage of their death-marked love, And the continuance of their parents' rage, Which, but their children's end, nought could remove, Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage -    The which, if you with patient ears attend,     What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

2. Can you identify the two key themes in the prologue?

Prologue

Enter Chorus

1. What emotions do you feel when you hear this? What words/phrases make you feel like this?

    Two households, both alike in dignity,     In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,     From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,     Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.     From forth the fatal loins of these two foes     A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life;     Whose misadventured piteous overthrows     Doth with their death bury their parents' strife.     The fearful passage of their death-marked love,     And the continuance of their parents' rage,     Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,     Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;      The which if you with patient ears attend,      What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

The Prologue Of equal status

Fresh hatred

Civilised

Fated

Misguided

But = except

R and J’s deaths end the feud

The play!

Listen carefully

Love Conflict

Draw a table like this in your book. Find words in the prologue which relate to each theme.

What part of the prologue do most of the ‘conflict’ words come from?

Does the prologue have any similarities to a modern day blurb?

Stanley Yelnats’ family has a history of bad luck, so he isn’t too surprised when a miscarriage of justice sends him to a boys’ juvenile detention centre. At Camp Green Lake the boys must dig a hole a day, five feet deep, five feet across, in the dried up lake bed. The Warden claims the labour is character building, but it is a lie. Stanley must dig up the truth.

Louis Sachar, Holes

Write a blurb for Romeo and Juliet, using the prologue as a basis for your own work.

A step by step guide:

1. Introduce the two protagonists.

2. Describe the plot.3. Show the theme of

love and conflict4. Give a hint about

the ending.

It should be short, snappy and attention-grabbing! (Around half a page)

It must include:• 3 of the words used in

your table

Challenge:• Try to include

imaginative vocabulary (think of words that will make the reader be on the edge of their seat!)

Plenary

• On a post-it note, write down one of the sentences in your blurb that you think shows the themes of ‘love’ and ‘conflict’• Stick it up on the board