Romeo and Juliet By William Shakespeare
Character Analysis through Song

After a week of reading William Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet and answering comprehension questions and creating comic strips of sections of the play, I decided to introduce my students to the song “Romeo and Juliet” by Indigo Girls. As soon as I assigned independent in-class assignments or activities, a few hands would shoot up and question if it was okay to listen to music. While I did allow them to do so, I quickly realised that music was a big part of my students’ lives and thought it would be a great idea to include music in my lesson plan in order to cater to their interests. While reading Romeo and Juliet and going through character analysis, I noticed that my students were tiptoeing around certain analytical ideas, yet they continued to miss the direct target. The song provided a creative springboard for a character analysis in-class assignment. The accompanying questions were created with the students’ previous in-class comments and discussions in mind. The questions served as a means to help the students arrive at the desired critical analysis of the characters in the play by contrasting them with the characters in the song.

First, I played the song on YouTube and asked the students simply to enjoy it. Then, I distributed a print copy of the song lyrics to each individual student and asked them to read the song silently. In addition, they were instructed to highlight similarities and differences between the actions and statements made by the characters in the play and in the song. This part of the assignment was done individually. I then proceeded by providing the students with five questions to answer based on their findings. These questions linked and differentiated between Shakespeare’s characters and their foils.

Asking the students to comment on the speed in which Romeo and Juliet fall in love in the song versus the play helped them draw an analytical criticism of the themes love, lust, and impulsiveness. By identifying and analyzing the actions of Romeo and Juliet from the song, the students were able to then analyse and criticize the actions and decisions made by the romantic characters in the play.

The majority of the class had never heard of Indigo Girls before and many communicated their puzzlement when I introduced the song. However, after I played it for them, their dispositions shifted and many told me of how much they liked the song. This activity provided the students with a break from the normal class routine by applying a common interest to good use. Class attentiveness and participation were exceptionally high during the class discussion as everyone wanted to contribute what they had noticed. Many students were eager to comment on Romeo’s “player” personality and Juliet’s “willingness to fall in love”.

This activity was also successful because it utilized different activities and parts that targeted different types of learners. The class used a graphic novel to study Romeo and Juliet, which was vital for all the visual learners in the class. The lesson plan included audio for auditory individuals, a reading and writing component for linguistic learners, a time alone to think and write for intrapersonal students, and a discussion section for interpersonal learners.