Tangled Hearts R&J Style

English 1 Honors students- 8th graders studying 9th grade curriculum in title 1 Middle School.
Romeo and Juliet is a required text in our curriculum.
I started with the question- If Romeo and Juliet were truly walking the halls of our school, what would it be like? What would there struggles be? What would they look like, etc?
Upon completion of the play Romeo and Juliet, I asked students to analyze various music videos with me for certain elements. They had already identified the four main themes in Romeo and Juliet : love, hate, violence and disobedience to recognized authority. Students had finished the play and done various lessons solidifying the themes.
We started by looking at Jay Z and Alicia Keys- Empire State of Mind music video, we then looked at a Writing Projects group- Youth Roots, who made this song their own by changing it to Oakland State of Mind.
We continued to analyze music videos with the following questions/criteria:
- Is the theme clearly displayed? How?
-can the storyline (acting) tell the story without the song?
-is the story compelling? Does it keep our attention.
My students chose Kelly Clarkson's song "My life would suck without you" as the best one based on our criteria.
From there students selected which of the four themes they felt strongest about and groups were formed. Students had to storyboard their script before they began filming.
Since we were limited on audio equipment they had to select an appropriate song for their theme and school. From there they started filming with their flips.
Students used Flip camera's, software and movie maker.
The end result was their own music video displaying one of the four main themes from Romeo and Juliet.
This lesson took about two weeks to complete with 54 minute periods.
I converted appropriate music video's from You Tube using Zamzar.com since You Tube is blocked at our school.