Common Core Standards: RL.9-10.1, RL 9-10.3, RL9-10.4, RL 9-10.5, L9-1.5a Monday, April 1st, 2019 Aim: How can we analyze the actions of minor characters playing a major role in the events of the play? Objective: Students will be able to analyze how minor characters (Nurse, Tybalt, Mercutio) are integral to the action of the play. Do Now: Answer one of the following questions. 1.) Romeo sought the counsel (advice) of Friar Lawrence, and who do you think Juliet will go to? Why do you say that? OR 2.) What does Romeo’s urgency in going to see the friar reveal?

Common Core Standards: RL.9-10.1, RL 9-10.3, RL9-10.4, RL 9-10.5, L9-1.5a Monday, April 1st, 2019 Aim: How can we analyze the actions of minor character playing a major role in the events of the play? Objective: Students will be able to analyze how minor characters (Nurse, Tybalt, Mercutio) are integral to the action of the play. Agenda 1.) Do Now: Answer one or both questions, turn and talk with your tablemates. Captains will prepare to share with the class. 2.) Mini-Lesson: Recall important events that will affect the action of today’s reading. Together we will read Act II, Scene IV of Romeo and Juliet. We will be stopping occasionally to decipher important passages, character choices, and events that take place in order to get a better understanding of the complex text. 3.) Reflection: What fateful decisions have been made? Was it choice or destiny that led R & J to act as they did? What are the advantages and disadvantages to a secret marriage? What other sensible arrangements could have been made?

Where’d you go, Romeo? We know that Romeo ditched his friends, visited Juliet, and then begged his priest to conduct a marriage ceremony, but his friends don’t know all of this. They’re still looking for him. What do they still think? They say he’s probably somewhere still hung up on Rosaline, and they think she is still driving him insane. We know better though (DRAMATIC IRONY). The two friends go around looking for him and find that a letter has arrived at his father’s house. The letter from Tybalt says what? So it turns out that the letter Tybalt has sent Romeo goes something along the lines of: “Dear Romeo, I have the urge to beat you up with my sword. Wanna fight? Sincerely, Tybalt" How do Benvolio and Mercutio react? Mercutio kinda makes fun of Romeo by saying, “ He is already dead, stabbed with a wench’s black eye, shot through the ear with a love song... And he is a man to encounter Tybalt?”

More Fighting? Mercutio makes fun of Romeo by saying that in the current state Romeo (is believed to be in) is not capable of fighting Tybalt. He’s already hurt, he’s love-struck, and he can’t fight. This isn’t the only reason that Mercutio seem to think that Romeo wouldn’t fare well in a fight against Tybalt, and what else does he say? Mercutio says that Tybalt is a talented fighter, quite capable with a sword. He calls him tougher than the Prince of Cats, a character of medieval lore, who was also named Tybalt. How can we describe cats? If Tybalt is tougher than the Prince of Cats, then we can assume that he is graceful, agile, predatory and territorial, much like cats. Has this been true of him so far?

Enter Romeo When Romeo enters the scene, Mercutio reminds him about the fact that he ditched him and Benvolio. Romeo responds by saying he had important business to attend to. We know what he’s talking about. What was the business? The nurse enters the scene with Peter. Mercutio welcomes her in typical Mercutio fashion, with a questionable joke and the nurse doesn’t seem to fond of him. Understandable. What reasons would the nurse have to visit Romeo? How would she know about this? Someone must have told her. Would anyone else know about it now? Maybe it’ll explain the letter. Shakespeare in this scene uses the technique of malapropism. Malapropism is defined as the use of a word in place of a similar-sounding one. What words were meant to be used here?

So why did the nurse visit? After Romeo manages to take the Nurse aside we learn of the reason for her visit. Why is she there? She is there to gather the details of the plan Romeo was to come up with. What did Juliet task him with doing? Romeo tells the nurse that he did his part, which was planning the wedding, but now she has to come up with a plan to visit Friar Lawrence. They exchange the necessary details and the plan is set. The nurse says something; what is it and is it the first time we’re getting hints about it? REFLECTION: What fateful decisions have been made? Was it choice or destiny that led R & J to act as they did? What are the advantages and disadvantages to a secret marriage? What other sensible arrangements could have been made?