Shakespeare gives us clues about how Romeo and Juliet feel towards each other through the structure and choice of language in this scene. You will need the Act 2 Scene 2 Resource. Watch the Scene in Performance in Erica Whyman's 2018 production.

Students are asked to reflect on ‘shared lines’ and repeated words. What do these shared lines tell us about their relationship? 

• Give each student a copy of Act 2 Scene 2, diving them into pairs and labelling themselves A and B. 

• A’s play Romeo and B’s play Juliet. 

• Ask each pair to read the scene paying attention to those lines that are broken (shared) between the characters. What do they notice about these lines?  How does this affect the reading of the lines?   

• Ask the pairs to read the scene again and read these lines so that there are no gaps (almost as if one character is finishing off the sentences of another character)? What do these shared lines tell us about their relationship? 

• Ask each pair to underline all the times the words remember/remembering and forget/forgetting are said by Romeo and Juliet.  

• What do they notice? What effect does this repetition have? What is Shakespeare telling us about Romeo and Juliet through this language? How do they feel towards each other at this moment? How do they feel about parting? 

This exercise creates a Judge and Jury to examines the final scene of the play. Students are asked to reflect on who is guilty for the deaths of Romeo, Juliet and Paris. You will need the Character Cards Resource. 

• Ask the group to form a circle and set up the context of the final scene in the play.  Here is a crime scene, there are three young people dead in a crypt and the place is now swarming with police. Who is guilty of this murder? Lady Capulet tells us that people are running in a sense of panic towards the monument. This is a genuinely shocking event for the town of Verona.  

• Choose five volunteers who are given character cards for The Friar, Lord Montague, The Nurse, Lord Capulet and Lady Capulet. These contain information about their part in the story of Romeo and Juliet.  

• Explain that the rest of the students are lawyers. Divide the lawyers into 2 groups with one group as the prosecution and the other as the Defense. 

• Distribute 5 cards labelled Defense to the Defense lawyers and the Prosecution cards to the Prosecution lawyers.  

• Arrange the lawyers on opposite sides of the room with the character volunteers on 5 chairs facing the rest of the students. 

• Starting with the Friar the Prosecution to ask him a series of questions about the night. For example: 

• Were was he on the night Romeo went to the tomb?  Why was he there?  

• What did he hear? 

• At any point the Defense team can come in and offer their defense for the individual. 

• At the end of the questioning the Prosecution team must come up with 3 reasons as to why the Friar is guilty/ the Defense team must come up with 3 reasons as to why the friar is innocent. 

• Make sure this happens with each volunteer so by the end you should have 3 reasons for and against the following characters; 

• The Nurse  

• Lord Capulet 

• Lady Capulet 

• Lord Montague 

• The Friar  

• Ask the characters to stand in a line and face the rest of the class who then act as the jury. 

• Choose one volunteer to read out the 3 reasons for and against the Friar. 

• The rest of the class raise their hands to vote for whether they believe this character is guilty or not guilty. 

• Repeat this for the rest of the characters. 

• A discussion about who is ultimately responsible for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet using the evidence collected from the trial exercise. Could these deaths have been prevented? How? 

Students should now have a complete understanding of the plot and key scenes within the play. 

As a final impression ask students to reflect on what are the 10 most important events in the play. What similarities and differences were there between the scenes chosen?  What have been identified as the central issues in the story?  Which elements of the story did the students find the most interesting and why?  Where does their empathy lie?  

• Divide students into groups of 4. 

• Ask them to make a list of the 10 most important events in the play.   

• This should be a fairly quick task and groups should not be allowed to be overly concerned whether events are in exactly the right order.   

• Ask the students to choose and write headlines or short extracts of text to illustrate their chosen moments in the play and use these headlines/ extracts to create 10 short scenes that show the story of Romeo and Juliet. 

• Allow 10 minutes for students to rehearse the scenes to perform to the class.  

• Show back each version. 

• What similarities and differences were there between the scenes chosen?  What have been identified as the central issues in the story?  Which elements of the story did the students find the most interesting and why?  Where does their empathy lie?