Introduction

Shakespeare is one of the greatest writers ever in history, but you don't know much about him or about his work. When you finish this WebQuest you will be able to say a lot about him and his well-known play "Romeo and Juliet"

You are male and female young actors that are going to take part in a competition to celebrate St. Valentine's Day. The competition has been organized by the English teachers in your school and in it you'll have to perform your version of the play "Romeo and Juliet".

Before you enter the competition, to understand this tragedy and to help you play your character as best as you can, you are going to do some research about Shakespeare, his time and the story of Romeo and Juliet.

First you will work in groups of three: a biographer, a literary critic and an art reporter. And later you will work in groups of six actors.

You are really excited about getting a prize in the competition. So, do your best to make sure you learn a lot and you are one of the winners.

Task

FIRST PART: in groups of 3

You have to prepare a report with all the information that you think is relevant about Shakespeare's age and about the play Romeo and Juliet. Your report will include what you consider more important and even special about the following aspects:

- Shakespeare's life and times

- The play "Romeo and Juliet"

- Theatre of the Shakespearean age

- Adaptations of Romeo and Juliet in films and music

SECOND PART: in groups of 6 (two of the previous groups have to join together to form a final theatre company)

When you finish the reports, all the members in your group of 6 should decide:

- If you are going to play a classical or a modern version of the play.

- Which character everyone is going to choose and prepares for the play.

- Then, to get ready for the the competition, the group will have to perfom "Romeo and Juliet" in front of your classmates.

Process

FIRST PART: in groups of 3

1. Form a group of 3 and assign each role: the biographer, the literary critic and the art reporter.

2. Talk about what you already know about the topic that you have been assigned.

3. Use the "Resources" that have been selected for each role.

4. Follow the instructions and do the tasks for each of the roles by clicking on the pictures below.

4. After doing the activities for each role, collect all the information and pictures that can be useful for your final report.

5. Examine and analyse the information that you  have found. Discuss within your group what you have got, what you consider more interesting or relevant and how you are going to organise your work. Ask about what you do not understand, suggest including some more information about any other aspects of the biography or the play that you may find useful or interesting, etc.

6. Although you can use the vocabulary and expressions in the readings, you have to use your own words to write your report.

7. Put everything together and then, everybody in the group reads and comments on the final report.

8. To write the final project use the word processor. You should also include some pictures from the Web.

9. Don't forget to read the "evaluation sheet" to know how your work will be evaluated.

SECOND PART: in groups of 6 (two of the previous groups have to join together to form a final theatre company)

1. Read, compare and comment the two reports written by the groups now joined to perform the play together. Perhaps there is something that you missed or some mistakes or errors that can be corrected before giving the report to your teacher.

2. Discuss within the group what kind of version of the play (classical, modern, etc) you would like to present best.

3. Discuss which character would be more appropriate to each of the members in the group.

4. Assign the roles to each one in the group. Some students may have to perform more than one character.

5. Select and adapt the text from the playscript in the graded readers version of "Romeo and Juliet" that you have read in the classroom.

6. Study your part, train and perform the play for your classmates.

Evaluation

Your report will be evaluated in group by your teacher, it means that all of you have to work hard to get a good mark.

Content, visual presentation and grammatical and spelling correctness will be also evaluated. Clik here to see the Evaluation Sheet

Your final performance will be evaluated by the teachers and the rest of your classmates.

Conclusion

You learnt about Shakespeare and his time, and you are probably more interested in reading any of his works. You can read more about him on this site

You also learnt about the story of Romeo and Juliet and you will enjoy reading it more. You can have a look at the entire play

Finally, you learnt how the story has been retold in films and music. Watching one of the films or listening to the music by Prokofiev could be a great idea for the next weekend.

You have performed and enjoyed the play, your career as an actor might have just started!

Teacher's Notes

- This Webquest has been designed for students of Secondary Education of English as a Foreign Language

- The required level is pre-intermediate or intermediate. I think it can work better with students in Bachillerato (16, 17 years old), but it can also be done with students of 4º ESO (15 years old), especially if they like English.

- The objectives are to make them read about the selected topics (they have to analyze and compile the information in order to write a report) and to make them learn some parts of the play.

- In our case, the reports were used to introduce the students to the reading of a graded readers version of Romeo and Juliet. That version included an adaptation of the playscript that students played in front of the classroom as the final task of the WebQuest as if they really were actors taking part in a competition.

- It was carried out in class in 5 sessions (3 sessions to guide them through the process and 2 for the performance) and as part of their homework.