In my experience, people have a strong reaction to Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 production of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet: they either love it, or they hate it. A teacher friend of mine once told me, “I refuse to show my classes the Leo DiCaprio version of Romeo and Juliet because… because… because it’s such a crock of shit.” Yet another colleague called it “lush and visually stunning.”

My students often refer to this version as the “new” one. It seems strange to refer to Baz Luhrmann’s production as the “new” version, when it is now ten years old; however, I think it does retain some freshness. It doesn’t appear dated, at least not yet, but I do feel that it’s potential to become dated is greater than that of Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 production (which seems dated only in some of the hairstyles).

One of the chief complaints of many people who don’t like the film is the modernization, which some believe borders on sacrilege. My department head mentioned she thinks it is weird to hear Shakespearean dialogue amidst the gunplay. Others dislike the so-called MTV quality of the film. Noted film critic Roger Ebert declared, “I have never seen anything remotely approaching the mess that the new punk version of Romeo & Juliet makes of Shakespeare’s tragedy” (via Rotten Tomatoes).

I have often hedged before telling someone I liked it, simply because those who react negatively to the film do so in such a, well, violent manner. No, no one’s ever hit me — but their crazy-eyed, passionate hatred has scared me! If I may be so bold, I have noticed that many people who dislike the film have such a strong, visceral reaction that they are unable to see that the film does have some merits. For example, given that Zeffirelli’s film is so true to the spirit of Shakespeare’s play, it might surprise you to learn that Luhrmann’s version actually contains more of the text of the play. Shocking! In fact, Zeffirelli’s version cuts one of the most famous lines: “But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? / It is the east, and Juliet is the sun” (Act II, Scene 2). If my memory serves, the most important line that Luhrmann cuts is Juliet’s famous “O happy dagger / This is thy sheath. There rust and let me die” (Act V, Scene 3).

I have to admit that I do not care for Luhrmann’s Balcony Scene. I don’t think there was any reason to put Romeo and Juliet in a pool, aside from amping up the sexuality. I wish also that the characters Sampson and Gregory had not been made Montagues rather than Capulets, and that Abra (Abraham or Abram) had not been made a Capulet rather than a Montague. My objection to this stems only from the fact that when I use the movie in class, this change can cause confusion.

Swapping guns for swords does not trouble me; I feel that Luhrmann handled that in a clever way, and in fact, the exchange really emphasized the violence in Romeo and Juliet’s world. Think about it: in the 1400’s it was not uncommon for the average male to carry a weapon or two. I think it makes sense that the omnipresence of weapons makes it more likely that weapons will be used. However, this was not something that particularly struck me as frightening until I saw all those guns. Why be more afraid of a gun than a sword? I’m not sure, but I know I felt as though life in Verona Beach, Florida was more precarious than life in Verona, Italy, even if this was not remotely a reality.

The massive throw-down at the gas station? It hooked me. A black Mercutio dressed in drag for the Capulets’ feast? I loved it. Miriam Margolyes’ Hispanic nurse screaming “Hoo-lee-etta!” Classic. The twist at the end, when Juliet awakes just before Romeo takes the poison? Clever and heart-wrenching. I should add that I have never had a class that didn’t laugh at Claire Daines’ echoing cry after Romeo dies. It does sound a bit, well, fake. What masterful use of the “Liebestod” from Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde after she dies!

In the balance, I like both films equally, and I use both in my class, though I only show the entirety of Zeffirelli’s version. After all, we only have so much time in class and a lot o curriculum to teach. However, I invite interested parties to come to my room at lunch to view Luhrmann’s version. Two years ago, I had a couple of girls who came to lunch and watched it over and over and over. I have not noticed that the students favor one version of the film over the other. For the most part, my students have enjoyed both. If you are interested, you can download and view a Power Point presentation in which I utilize images from Luhrmann’s film (designed to introduce Shakespeare’s play to students).

[tags]Baz Luhrmann, William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet[/tags]

In my last post about teaching Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, I mentioned a writing assignment I like for my students to do: an analysis of Juliet’s relationship with her nurse. In my first post in this series, I discussed an activity in which students compare and contrast two filmed versions of the Balcony Scene (Act II, Scene 2). Until I taught today, I didn’t know I was going to write about today’s lesson, as I didn’t consider it to be particularly noteworthy, but a student’s comment at the end of class changed my mind.

When we begin Act III of Romeo and Juliet (really any Shakespearean tragedy — or at least all the ones I can think of right off the top of my head), I tell students that this is the act in which “all hell breaks loose.” I know I have more license to say things like that than some teachers, but students usually appreciate the humor. Sure enough, in the first scene, Tybalt and Mercutio are both slain. We actually read this scene on Friday. One of the students asked a question about Mercutio’s death. I can’t remember exactly how the question was phrased, but it had something to do with why Tybalt did it, especially since Mercutio was related to Prince Escalus. Didn’t he worry about being executed? I thought it was a very good question, and I mentioned that though Shakespeare’s stage directions leave this scene open to interpretation, both movie versions I had seen approached the scene in a similar way: Mercutio’s death was an accident. In Franco Zeffirelli’s version, Tybalt and Mercutio are clearly not seriously trying to hurt each other. At one point, they even exchange an exasperated look as Romeo continues to try to part them. Michael York’s face displays shock when he pulls his sword away and sees blood. In Baz Luhrmann’s film, Tybalt is defending himself from an aggressive Mercutio, but John Leguizamo, too, looks somewhat surprised (or at least dazed) after he stabs Mercutio with a large piece of glass. I told students that it is possible to get around the “wasn’t Tybalt thinking” problem by directing the scene so that it is clearly an accident, but the truth is, one could also argue that Tybalt is hot-headed by nature and didn’t think about the consequences or who Mercutio’s connections were. The beauty is that either interpretation makes perfect sense. It all boils down to how much of a jerk the director wants Tybalt to be.

We learn that Romeo is exiled at the end of Scene 1. When Scene 2 opens, Juliet has not yet heard the news of Tybalt’s death or Romeo’s banishment. We stopped and talked about how the nurse confuses Juliet; she isn’t clear about who died or what happened at first, and Juliet mistakenly thinks Romeo is dead. One of the students asked why the nurse wasn’t more clear. I said she was very upset and wasn’t thinking straight, but it also makes for some great dramatic tension, as we (the audience) already know what happened. Juliet recites a fantastic list of paradoxes/oxymorons:

O serpent heart hid with a flowering face!
Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?
Beautiful tyrant! Fiend angelical!
Dove-feathered raven, wolvish-ravening lamb!
Despisèd substance of divinest show,
Just opposite to what thou justly seem’st.
A damnèd saint, an honorable villain!
O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell
When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend
In moral paradise of such sweet flesh?
Was ever book containing such vile matter
So fairly bound? Oh, that deceit should dwell
In such a gorgeous palace!

When I teach Romeo and Juliet, I ask students to look for examples of foreshadowing, oxymorons and paradoxes, puns, allusions, metaphors, and personification, but when we run into any of those literary devices in use, I always stop, and ask students “What is that?” They’re especially good at picking out foreshadowing.

In Scene 3, Romeo learns about the Prince’s judgment. Friar Laurence tries to convince Romeo that it isn’t so bad — it’s possible that with time, a solution can be found, and Romeo and Juliet can be reunited. I mentioned that I thought Romeo was being whiny, which gave the students an opportunity to tell me I was too harsh.

In the next scene, Juliet’s father decides to marry her off to Paris. When we read the earlier scene in which Capulet declared, “Woo her gentle Paris, get her heart / My will to her consent is but a part,” we stopped and talked about it, and I told students to remember he said that. Sure enough, one of the students said, “I thought he said she was too young earlier.” I said, “He did, didn’t he? And he also said she had a say in the matter.” I pointed out that Capulet is sure that Juliet will be happy about the news; it never occurs to him that she will not want to marry Paris.

Capulet has a great scene in which he explodes at Juliet’s seeming ungratefulness. Both of Juliet’s parents say some fairly awful things in their anger, and Juliet turns to the nurse for advice. The nurse tells her that it would be smart to marry Paris. Romeo can’t very well come to Verona to challenge the marriage, and after all, Paris is wealthy nobility. Juliet determines never to confide in the nurse again. This decision is critical. I asked students to think about what this means for our young lovers. One student mentioned she could still talk to Friar Laurence. I said, yes, she could, and she is just about to — she told the nurse she was going to confession.

One of the things I sometimes do when I’m talking during discussion is draw a student in, even if he or she isn’t really participating at the moment. An example might be, “I think Romeo’s being a real whiner here, right Bob?” or “I don’t know about you, but I’m scared for Juliet. Aren’t you scared Sally?” I don’t know why, but the students think it’s funny. It’s not the same as that teacher tactic of calling out when someone is not paying attention. It’s kind of a playful way of paying attention to a student.

At the end of class today, I summed up Act III: “So was I right? All hell broke loose! Mercutio and Tybalt are dead. Romeo has to leave town. Juliet has to get married, but she’s already married.”

The room was nearly empty. Just two students were still packing up their notebooks and backpacks. One of them smiled down at his desk and said, “Ms. Huff, you’re crazy cool.” I said, “You are too.” And he said, “Thanks.” I didn’t really realize I was doing much here — just reading and discussing together. But then again, no one ever accused me of being “crazy cool” after assigning a compare/contrast essay about the Balcony Scene.

[tags]Romeo and Juliet, teaching, education, Shakespeare[/tags]

I began reading Huck Finn with my 10th graders today.  I told them near the beginning of the period that I had been looking forward to their class all day so that we could read together.  I wonder if other teachers tell students little secrets like that.  If not, I think they should.  I think it’s great for students to see that we really enjoy the material we’re teaching.  I think that sort of affection and appreciation can be contagious.  We began with Twain’s NOTICE at the beginning of the book.  I asked the students why Twain would write such a thing.  Predictably, their first reaction was to take him at his word and assume he really didn’t want us to find a motive, moral, or plot in the novel.  I asked them, “What do you want to do the minute someone tells you not to do something?” and they immediately understood.  By asking the reader not to look for a motive, moral, and plot, Twain was making sure that the reader would do the opposite.  Clever guy.

I read aloud for the first two chapters.  One student who just finished the book mentioned that until he heard me read it, he couldn’t figure out what Jim’s word “gwyne” meant.  That comment is a perfect argument for starting the story by reading aloud in class.  We had to have a discussion about snuff, which is mentioned early in the story, because the students hadn’t heard of it and wanted to know all about it.  Of course, they immediately leaped to the conclusion that I knew too much about it not to have tried it; sometimes it doesn’t pay to be a know-it-all schoolteacher.  And for the record, no, I haven’t tried snuff.  We talked a bit about superstition and the meanness of Tom Sawyer.

As we read, I was pleased to hear the students laugh in the right places.  I do hope they enjoy the book.   I think some of them were intimidated by the book’s size.  We have the Norton Critical Edition, which has about as much text of literary criticism in the back as it does novel text.  Students at my school pay an activity fee that covers the cost of paperback novels, but the novelty never seems to wear off when they get new books.  Each time they ask if the books are theirs to keep.  It reminds me a bit of that scene in Freedom Writers when the students get new books, and murmur over them.  The only books our students can’t keep are the textbooks or expensive anthologies that we use.

On a personal note, I have taught this class of 10th graders for two years now.  I have them for two classes this year — American Literature and Composition and Writing Seminar.  I’m really proud of how far they have come and all they have learned.  We have accomplished a lot together over the last year and a half, especially this year, and I am excited to watch them grow and learn.  I don’t think I will be teaching them next year.  I think it is a good thing to have different teachers.  But I’m going to miss them next year.

[tags]education, Huckleberry Finn[/tags]

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is, in my estimation, one of those books that everyone should be required to read. In the immortal words of no less a person than Ernest Hemingway, “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn… American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.” Rex Stout proclaimed in his 1969 Nero Wolfe novel Death of a Dude that the sentence Huck utters to himself after he decides to tear up the letter to Miss Watson is the “single greatest sentence in American literature”:

It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:

“All right, then, I’ll go to hell” — and tore it up.

Think about how much Huck was conveying in that simple sentence. Every time I read that passage, I get chills.

When I teach this novel, I have found it important to provide students with a map of some sort that they keep in their notebook for reference. Students have difficulty with the concept of traveling south in order to get to the North — specifically, to Cairo, Illinois. The Center for Learning has a unit plan that has a great map in it.

I begin a study of this novel by focusing directly on the controversy surrounding it. In order to do this, I pass out a list of the ALA’s most frequently challenged books list. I found a good one in Teaching Tolerance magazine about two years ago. These lists are widely available, however. I photocopy the list for each student, pass it out, and ask students to cross out all the titles they’ve read. What they often find is that 1) they’ve read a lot of challenged books, 2) they don’t understand why the books were challenged. This realization opens the door for a good discussion about why someone might challenge Huck Finn.

The word “nigger” appears in the book 212 times. However, in the words of Russell Baker,

“The people whom Huck and Jim encounter on the Mississippi are drunkards, murderers, bullies, swindlers, lynches, thieves, liars, frauds, child abusers, numbskulls, hypocrites, windbags and traders in human flesh. All are white. The one man of honor in this phantasmagoria is ‘Nigger Jim,’ as Twain called him to emphasize the irony of a society in which the only true gentleman was held beneath contempt.”

Eventually, your students will come to this realization, but I have found tackling the issue head-on to be an excellent way to begin the novel.

After we have our discussion, I begin the novel by reading aloud. I have a bit of a Southern twang, and I can certainly amp it up when reading Southern literature. The dialect can be difficult for students, so I have found hearing it helps them to get a feel for it.

I have not discontinued my series of posts on teaching Romeo and Juliet. I will most likely post more ideas for R&J toward the end of this week or next week. In addition, I will post further tips and ideas for teaching Huck Finn.

[tags]education, Huckleberry Finn, challenged books[/tags]

I love teaching Romeo and Juliet. I have taught this play for seven of the ten years I have been teaching, and the only reason I didn’t do it for those three is that I was teaching pre-K and middle school, and it wasn’t part of either curriculum. Romeo and Juliet might be my favorite piece of literature to teach for two reasons: 1) It has massive appeal for students and makes a great introduction to Shakespeare for 9th graders; 2) I love the language — I have huge chunks of it memorized — and teaching this play affords me the opportunity to teach an author I am enthusiastic about to students who are enthusiastic, too.

Great ideas for teaching this play are not exactly in short supply. I used to swear by Shakespeare Set Free, although in the last few years I have found myself being more selective about which activities that I use from that book. I do, for instance, enjoy having students look at different characters’ thoughts on love and Shakespeare’s “language tricks,” but I do not have them create masks and learn how to do the Pilgrims and Saints dance. I have actually found much more challenging activities at the Folger Shakespeare Library’s website.

The play begins as two servants of the Capulet household, Sampson and Gregory, encounter Abraham (Abra or Abram) in the street. The punny banter between Sampson and Gregory is very much period humor, and I have to say it isn’t the most inviting way to begin (though who am I to question the Bard?). Many staged versions (including the two popular movie versions) cut this scene down significantly. The important part is the fight. I do explain the puns through some notes students take down. Also, and I think this is important, I make sure my kids understand what they’re reading. Yes, even the bawdy parts.

I challenge students to memorize Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech for extra credit. We break the speech down and try to figure out what sort of person Mercutio is. One note about Mercutio: students have trouble with the fact that he is friends with Romeo and still invited to the Capulets’ feast. I explain to them that he is not a Montague — he is kin to the Prince and to Count Paris, and therefore, most likely an important person. Of course Capulet would invite him to the feast.

The first significant writing assignment I do is a compare/contrast essay (can be a full essay or a one-paragraph essay). We read the famous Balcony Scene (Act II, Scene 2) together. Then students make a compare/contrast graphic organizer. In order to do this activity, you must have two versions of Romeo and Juliet on DVD or VHS.  Personally, I think it is great to show the BBC’s version starring Patrick Ryecart and Rebecca Saire (1978). Frankly, the Balcony Scene in this version is passionless and boring. It makes for a great contrast against Franco Zeffirelli’s excellent version starring Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting (1968). The BBC version is not as widely available, however, as Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 version starring Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio. A comparison between Zeffirelli and Luhrmann’s versions works very well; Zeffirelli’s is true to the spirit of the play’s setting, while Luhrmann’s is actually more faithful to the text. Some students notice this, but most will need your guidance to pick up on that. I need to take a moment to say I absolutely detest the fact that Luhrmann’s Balcony Scene takes place mostly in a swimming pool.

Using their graphic organizer, students list everything they notice while watching Zeffirelli’s film — set, costumes, lines spoken, actor’s choices (emphasis, blocking, etc.) — in the first column. In the second, they do the same for the Luhrmann film. The lower half of the graphic organizer is for noting similarities and differences between the two. Students then have a good plan for creating a compare/contrast essay. The organizer helps them focus, I think.

This idea was adapted from Shakespeare Set Free: Teaching A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, and Macbeth.

A bonus for the curious — if you have ever wondered what became of the actors in Zeffirelli’s version, you can learn about it on my personal blog.

[tags]Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare, Franco Zeffirelli, Baz Luhrmann, compare/contrast essay, Balcony Scene, YouTube[/tags]