Grade 7 Humanities: Week of 5/13/2019 Brawl In The Streets Once, Shame On You. Brawl In The Streets Twice, Shame On Me. Three Civil Brawls? Uh Oh . . .
“Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,
Profaners of this neighbour-stained steel,–
Will they not hear? What, ho! you men, you beasts,
That quench the fire of your pernicious rage
With purple fountains issuing from your veins,
On pain of torture, from those bloody hands
Throw your mistemper’d weapons to the ground,
And hear the sentence of your moved prince.
Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word,
By thee, old Capulet, and Montague,
Have thrice disturb’d the quiet of our streets,
And made Verona’s ancient citizens
Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments,
To wield old partisans, in hands as old,
Canker’d with peace, to part your canker’d hate:
If ever you disturb our streets again,
Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.
For this time, all the rest depart away:
You Capulet; shall go along with me:
And, Montague, come you this afternoon,
To know our further pleasure in this case,
To old Free-town, our common judgment-place.
Once more, on pain of death, all men depart.”
–Prince Escalus, Act I, i
Dear Families,
It is unsurprising that the thematic connections between Shakespeare’s text and the American Civil War abound. It serves to remind us that discord unfortunately has a firm foothold in the continuity of human existence.
Now that we’ve acclimated to the Shakespearean language by reading Act I, we will be creatively imagining that we have been invited to Lord Capulet’s feast. We will be designing and making masks based on characters from Romeo and Juliet at the end of this week (after the 7th grade trip!). In addition to an associated character from the play, each mask will be required to have a title, a detailed description of the mask and the event where it was worn, and finally, a quote from another character about the mask.
Approaching characterization in this way will allow us to really get to know these people! What would Romeo and Juliet do? Lady Capulet? Paris? The Nurse? Students will use re-purposed materials like old Halloween costumes, clothing, jewelry, cardboard and paint to craft imaginative masks based on both textual analysis and inference. In discussing this project, we have noticed that while a mask can shield us, it can also reveal us! And, as we forge ahead in the coming weeks, we will also be examining how stage directions, settings, and character interactions alter text. Lastly, our Mask Gallery will be curated and displayed in the hallway outside of Room 437 in a couple of weeks, so come by to see it and crush a cup of wine!
Yours,
Ms. Sacilotto
Assignment: Update the fight between Sampson & Gregory, Abraham, Tybalt, Benvolio, Old Capulet, Old Montague, and others using modern language and a technological platform like text messages or a form of social media. Be sure to capture each character’s distinctions in your dialogue.
Sample:
Capulet & Montague Official Argument Chat by Fiona Lawson
[Samp & Greg]
Abraham!! is that u in the town square???
[TheRealAbraham]
What? Yes, why?
[Samp & Greg]
[TheRealAbraham]
What?! Do you dare bite your thumb at me? Also, who’s Shakespeare?
[Sampson & Gregory (shared account)]
no of course not. We’re just biting our nails. And idk. It came with the image
[TheRealAbraham]
Well.
[Mr-Benvolio is online]
[Samp & Greg)]
Let’s fight irl
[TheRealAbraham]
I’m down.
[Mr-Benvolio]
STOP! What are you doing?
[Cat_Prince is online]
[Mr-Benvolio]
Youre screwing up the peace.
[Cat_Prince]
Why should I care about peace?? I hate it all. Every piece of peace. Pun intended.
[Mr-Benvolio]
Stop joking maybe? People are going to die.
[Cat_Prince]
No. I hate every piece of peace, and I hate every piece of you
[Samp & Greg]
Valid
[Montague:Family is online]
[Capulet:Family is online]
[Capulet:Family]
A fight? Well, fear me, Montague!
[Montague:Family]
No! I am armed!!
[Blacksmith, Woodsmith, Gardener, Shopkeeper, Farmer, and Shepherd are all online]
[Blacksmith]
Give in! The capulets shall prevail and so will justice
[Farmer]
Are you assuming the capulets are the way of justice?
[Woodsmith]
Yes he is and rightfully so
[Shopkeeper]
Idiots
[Shepherd]
In the square with knife. Ready to spill some Montague blood
[Princeyyy_ has joined the chat]
[Princeyyy_]
STOP FIGHTING EVERYONE NOW
[Capulet:Family]
You are weak, MONTAGUES!!
[Montague:Family]
Shut up
[Capulet:Family]
Make me
[Princeyyy_]
I’m serious I’ll torture you
[Blacksmith, Woodsmith, Gardener, Shopkeeper, Farmer, Shepherd, TheRealAbraham, Samp & Greg, and Cat_Prince have left the chat]
[Princeyyy_]
As for you, Capulets, an escort is arriving to take you to the castle. Montague will meet with me at noon. I hope you have a good rest of the morning.
************************************
Shakespearean Text by Sadie Gladstone
Sampson and Gregory are texting.
Sampson: I hate the Montagues.
Gregory: Same.
Sampson: If I saw a Montague right now, I would punch him in his stupid face.
Gregory: Him? What if it was a girl?
Sampson: I… I would respect her, and definitely wouldn’t be rude or obscene in any way.
Gregory: Sure. Just like you would totally have the guts to hit a Montague.
Sampson: Hey! I could hit a Montague! I would just have to talk to him first.
Gregory: Okay.
Abraham was added to the chat.
Gregory: Go ahead, Sampson. Tell the big bad Montague how you’re going to “punch him in his stupid face.”
Abraham: You’re going to what? Wow, even the Capulet servants are idiots.
Sampson: Oh yeah? Well, I’m biting my thumb at you! So there!
Abraham: You do realize I can’t see that over the phone, right? This just proves my point.
Gregory: This is getting out of hand.
Benvolio was added to the chat.
Benvolio: Would you weirdos stop calling each other names?
Tybalt was added to the chat.
Tybalt: HEY! YOU CAN’T JUST CALL PEOPLE NAMES AND THEN TELL THEM TO STOP CALLING EACH OTHER NAMES!
Benvolio: Whoa. Calm down.
Tybalt: CALM DOWN!? DON’T YOU TELL ME TO CALM DOWN, YOU BIG JERK! I HATE CALMING DOWN, AND I HATE YOUR STUPID FACE!
Sampson: Let’s leave everyone’s faces out of this, guys.
Tybalt: DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO! AAAAGGGGHHHH!
Various Capulets and Montagues were added to the chat.
Montague: You suck!
Capulet: Your mom sucks!
Old Capulet was added to the chat.
Old Capulet: How do you send the little picture thingies? I wanted to add a lot of frowning faces and knives, but I don’t know how.
Old Montague was added to the chat.
Old Montague: Who invited this old man to the chat?
Old Capulet: Old man? You’re just as old as I am! And I was here first.
Old Montague: Well, I was here better.
Old Capulet: That doesn’t even make sense!
Prince Escalus was added to the chat.
Prince Escalus: As all of you full well know, we have a zero-tolerance policy for cyber-bullying. Everyone in this group chat needs to apologize to each other. And as for Old Capulet and Old Montague, you two are far too old to be engaging in such shenaniganry. If I catch any of you engaging in this behavior again, there will be serious consequences. Do I make myself clear?
Everyone: Yes, Prince Escalus.
The End
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