Romeo's on Trial

Last week my freshmen classes put Romeo Montague on trial for the murder of Tybalt Capulet. It went very well... and each time the judges declared him innocent of charges. However, one group did decree that both families and servants must vacate the city by nightfall.

I split the students up in groups of four. The groups were:

• Defense of Romeo Montague
• Prosecutors
• Montague family (with plea for mercy)
• Capulet family (with victim impact statement)
• Judges
• Citizens

The judges had one of the harder parts in that they had to prepare arguements from both sides. The citizens group had to prepare a community impact type argument - but they had a very hard coming up with it. I couldn't really tell if it was due to lack of information (not paying attention to reading) or if they just didn't get the concept of regular people being affected by the actions of the families. All of the students enjoyed the project and said that they learned a lot about the story from it. The arguements were well thought out and adding a requirement of questioning each other really added to discussion. There was even legal jargon thrown around!

We finished the play today in most classes - one class missed 2 days this week due to another standardized test - and movie starts tomorrow!

My sophomore class just started Julius Caesar... any suggestions to spice it up? The slow action is not so attention grabbing for those raised on a steady diet of sit-coms and action movies.