Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (Folger Shakespeare Library Edition)

Mowat, B. A., & Werstine, P. (Eds.). (2011). Folger Shakespeare Library: Romeo 
     and Juliet by William Shakespeare. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster. 


Summary:  A longstanding grudge between two families has caused ongoing hostility in Verona, Italy.  The Montagues' son Romeo is out of sorts because he is in love with a woman who shares no interest in him.  His cousin Benvolio encourages him to go to a party to find another woman.  They crash the Capulet's family, the great enemy of the Montagues.  Capulet is hoping to marry his daughter Juliet off to County Paris.  While at the party, Romeo sets eyes on Juliet and falls in love at first sight.  The two decide to marry during a famous balcony scene later that evening.  But many unfortunate events caused by the families' feuding ultimately leads to their dual suicide.

Review:  This is by far my favorite edition to teach.  I probably taught with it 14 times with 9th grade students.  The format and the spacing is good for kids.  The notes provided on the left side of the page are accessible to students and the short summaries for each scene are easy to understand.  Folger also provides a lot of online support materials.

Suggestions for Teachers:  Use Folger's Shakespeare Set Free to help make teaching this text really interactive.  There are lots of activities from tableaus to blocking and rewriting scripts that make this by far a favorite unit for 9th graders who are sometimes craving reading a classic they've heard about over and over.  Do a side-by-side reading of Gareth Hinds' graphic novel and show clips from Zeferelli and Luhrmann's films.  Give them the plot in advance.  Even use key lines to act out the scene.  Create improvs of modern day scenarios to help engage  (I have written a bunch of these and can email!)  Look at modern Romeo and Juliet scenarios in the world as a connection to social studies.

Reading Level:

1. Quantitative: Lexile 720L, ATOS Book Level 8.6, Readability Grade Level 4.8, Flesh-Kincaid 3.3, RMM 7.7 *There seems to be some inconsistency in the quantitative assessment.  From my background of teaching Romeo and Juliet, I would lean towards 8th-9th grade reading level.
2. Qualitative:  Reading a play is a complex task on its own.  The reader is left to visualizing time and place and shifts in setting.  The organization here is very complex as there are subplots.  Language can be exceedingly complex but Folger does a great job of simplifying key lines and adding accessible summaries on the left hand side of the page.  There are multiple levels of meaning but a student doesn't need to understand all of them to get the gist of the play as a first pass.  Of course there are dated historical and some Biblical references, but with the support this edition provides, the knowledge demands are lessened.  The young, forbidden love theme and disagreement with parents will be easy to connect with most teens.

Content Areas: English (teaching Shakespeare), Social Studies

Common Core State Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.2
Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to the characters, setting, and plot; provide an objective summary of the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.3
Analyze how particular lines of dialogue or incidents in a story or drama propel the action, reveal aspects of a character, or provoke a decision.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.4
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including analogies or allusions to other texts.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.5
Compare and contrast the structure of two or more texts and analyze how the differing structure of each text contributes to its meaning and style.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.7
Analyze the extent to which a filmed or live production of a story or drama stays faithful to or departs from the text or script, evaluating the choices made by the director or actors.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.9
Analyze how a modern work of fiction draws on themes, patterns of events, or character types from myths, traditional stories, or religious works such as the Bible, including describing how the material is rendered new.

Relevant Links: There is so much out there just doing a quick search on google. But I love the Folger Shakespeare Library! Folger Digital Texts, Folger Shakespeare Library

Subject/Themes: love, forbidden love, parental pressure, Shakespeare, gangs, feuds, poetry, sonnet, play, drama

Awards: N/A

Series Information: Folger Shakespeare Library Series