What if Romeo never met Juliet? What if Juliet never drank the potion? What if all the Montagues died of the plague before the tragedy of Romeo & Juliet could ever happen?
It’s up to you.
Let your students crack open their creative minds and determine their own path for Romeo & Juliet in this lesson.
Choose Your Own Adventure: A Romeo and Juliet Lesson
Materials Needed
North, Ryan. (2016). Romeo and/or Juliet: A Chooseable Path Adventure. New York: Riverhead Books, 2016. Print.
What’s This Book All About?
This is a choosable path adventure of Romeo and Juliet. Readers can choose Romeo or Juliet and start on their adventure, choosing their path as they go. The author is witty and offers a unique interpretation of Romeo and Juliet. The original path that Shakespeare’s play takes is marked with hearts so the reader can simply follow that path if they’d like or they can rewrite the play completely.
Content/Subject Area
7-12th Grade English
Quantitative Reading Level: Not Available
Qualitative Reading Level: 7-12th grade
The language here is much more accessible than Shakespeare’s language and students who struggled with his language may be able to access and understand more of the play through this. The writing is sarcastic, so I would not recommend it for elementary students.
Possible Standards
| CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.7.3 | Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences. |
| CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.7.3.A | Engage and orient the reader by establishing a context and point of view and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally and logically. |
| CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.7.3.B | Use narrative techniques, such as dialogue, pacing, and description, to develop experiences, events, and/or characters. |
| CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.7.3.C | Use a variety of transition words, phrases, and clauses to convey sequence and signal shifts from one time frame or setting to another. |
| CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.7.3.D | Use precise words and phrases, relevant descriptive details, and sensory language to capture the action and convey experiences and events. |
| CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.7.3.E | Provide a conclusion that follows from and reflects on the narrated experiences or events. |
| CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.7.4 | Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in standards 1-3 above.) |
Project Suggestion
Use this as an example for students to create their own choosable path adventure for one of the characters as a culminating activity after reading Romeo and Juliet.
Have students preview the book or walk through one of the short paths with the class, using images of the book or a document camera so that they can be projected and followed by the whole class.
In groups, have students decide on (or assign) a character whose fate they would like to change. They can choose almost any character in Romeo and Juliet for this.
In their group, they will create a chooseable path for their chosen character.
They can create a book, a poster, or a slideshow. Make sure they include the character’s original path and mark that path as North did. Also, have them play with language, not quite using Shakespeare’s Early Modern English, but choosing their language intentionally, using common Shakespearean terms and phrases.
Additional Romeo & Juliet Resources
Romeo and Juliet Prereading Lesson: http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/tragic-love-introducing-shakespeare-1162.html
Lesson Plans and Teaching Resources: https://www.varsitytutors.com/englishteacher/romeoandjuliet
Shakespeare Uncovered from PBS: https://ca.pbslearningmedia.org/collection/romeo-and-juliet/
So encourage your students’ creativity with this Romeo and Juliet lesson and project. Who knows? Maybe their version of Romeo and Juliet will be even better than the original! (No offense, Shakespeare.)
Want the full project with additional resources? Head to our Teachers Pay Teachers store and buy our Romeo and Juliet: Choose Your Own Adventure Project.
