9th Graders Take on Romeo and Juliet

When you have a campus with an old building that has back steps and a second floor balcony, it naturally leads to a more hands-on approach to reading Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Ninth graders take on the classic tale of the star-crossed lovers every year, reading it out loud in class. But when they get to the balcony scene, they head out onto the quad, sending Juliet and the Nurse to the upstairs balcony and posting Romeo down below. The whole campus rings out with Shakespeare's classic balcony scene lines and students walk away with an experiential version of the famous scene. On a dreary February day, love was in the air as we heard 'wherefore art thou Romeo' and "I shall say goodnight 'till it be morrow' from up above and down below. It's always a lovely treat for the ninth graders, teacher Nancy Hiles Johnson, and those of us who get to listen in.