Common Core Standards: RL.9-10.1, RL 9-10.3, RL9-10.4, RL 9-10.5, L9-1.5a Friday, March 29th, 2019 Aim: How can we analyze how the actions of minor characters play a major role in the events of the play? Objective: Students will be able to analyze how minor characters (Nurse, Tybalt, Mercutio) are integral to the action of the play. Do Now: Answer one of the following questions. 1.) Romeo sought the counsel (advice) of Friar Lawrence, so who do you think Juliet will go to? Why do you say that? OR 2.) What does Romeo’s urgency in going to see the friar reveal?
Common Core Standards: RL.9-10.1, RL 9-10.3, RL9-10.4, RL 9-10.5, L9-1.5a Friday, March 29th, 2019 Aim: How can we analyze how the actions of minor characters play a major role in the events of the play? Objective: Students will be able to analyze how minor characters (Nurse, Tybalt, Mercutio) are integral to the action of the play. Agenda 1.) Do Now: Answer one or both questions, turn and talk with your tablemates. Captains will prepare to share with the class. 2.) Mini-Lesson: Recall important events that will affect the action of today’s reading. Together we will read Act II, Scene IV of Romeo and Juliet. We will be stopping occasionally to decipher important passages, character choices, and events that take place in order to get a better understanding of the complex text. 3.) Reflection: The nurse enters the scene, and we know that the friar has agreed to marry Romeo and Juliet. What reasons can we assume for her entering the scene? How would she have learned about the plan? What can we assume might happen with this information spreading?
Where’d you go, Romeo? We know that Romeo ditched his friends, visited Juliet, then begged his priest to conduct a marriage ceremony, but his friends don’t. They’re still looking for him. What do they still think? They say he’s probably somewhere still hung up on Rosaline, and they think she is still driving him insane. We know better though (DRAMATIC IRONY). The two friends go around looking for him and find that a letter has arrived at his father’s house. The letter from Tybalt says what? So it turns out that the letter Tybalt has sent Romeo goes something along the lines of: “Dear Romeo, I have the urge to beat you up with my sword. Wanna fight? Sincerely, Tybalt" How do Benvolio and Mercutio react? Mercutio kind of makes fun of Romeo by saying, “ He is already dead, stabbed with a wench’s black eye, shot through the ear with a love song... And he is a man to encounter Tybalt?”
More Fighting? Mercutio makes fun of Romeo by saying that in the current state Romeo (is believed to be in) is not capable of fighting Tybalt. He’s already hurt, he’s lovestruck, and he can’t fight. This isn’t the only reason that Mercutio seem to think that Romeo wouldn’t fare well in a fight against Tybalt. What else does he say? Mercutio says that Tybalt is a talented fighter, quite capable with a sword. He calls him tougher than the Prince of Cats, a character of medieval lore, who was also named Tybalt. How can we describe cats? If Tybalt is tougher than the Prince of Cats than we can assume that he is graceful, agile, predatory and territorial, much like cats. Has this been true of him so far?
Enter Romeo When Romeo enters the scene, Mercutio reminds him about the fact that he ditched him and Benvolio. Romeo responds by saying he had important business to attend to. We know what he’s talking about. Romeo has seemed to finally drop the whole “I’m depressed because no one loves me back” mood. How do we know this? Because he’s willing to engage in a great pastime: trash talking and telling each other some dirty jokes. The nurse enters the scene with Peter. Mercutio welcomes her in typical Mercutio fashion, with a questionable joke and the nurse doesn’t seem to fond of him. Understandable. What reasons would the nurse have to visit Romeo? How would she know about this? Someone must have told her. Would anyone else know about it now? Maybe it’ll explain the letter.