Romeo and JulietAct 1 Prologue

Best Practices for ESL LearnersShakespeare Unit

Ms. Aixa B. RodriguezHigh School of World Cultures

Aim: How can we memorize Shakespeare?

• Do Now: Take notes.• A mnemonic device is a tool to

help you remember information. • A rebus (Latin: "by things") is a

kind of word puzzle that uses pictures to represent words or parts of words.

• We can memorize Shakespeare, through study and repetition but also through mnemonic devices and rebus charts.

Two households, both alike in dignity,

• Two families, the Montagues and the Capulets, both equal in money, status and respect.

In fair Verona where we lay our scene,

• The setting for this play is Verona, Italy.

From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,

A new fight breaks out based on old hatred and

anger.

Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean,

• Citizens of Verona dirty their hands with the blood of other citizens from the violence.

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes,

• From these two enemies

A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life,

• Two unlucky lovers are born

Whose misadventured piteous overthrows,

doth with their death bury their parent’s strife,

• The mistakes and miscommunications, and resulting suicides of the lovers ends their parents’ feud.

_

The fearful passage of their death-marked love,

• The story of their tragic love

And the continuance of their parent’s rage,

And their parents continued anger

Which but their children’s end naught could remove,

Only the deaths of their children could remove the hatred between these two enemies.

Is now the two hours traffic of our stage,

• For the next two hours we will tell the story on stage.

The which if you with patient ears attend, what here shall miss our

toil shall strive to mend.

• This final couplet asks the audience to listen patiently and what they missed in the prologue the actors will try to make clear in the play.

YES WE CAN DO SHAKESPEARE!

Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the

good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt

- William Shakespeare