Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Romeo and Juliet Essay

Romeo and Juliet

Some people think that projects aren’t valuable in the classroom, and that kids should be sitting in desks taking tests. However, there is a lot of value in projects. The values in the Romeo and Juliet Project are that there is interaction; it's very memorable, it teaches kids how to you use tech tools, and gives kids the opportunity to talk to kids in another state. Although reading the story and taking tests would have had value, the Romeo and Juliet project has a lot of value in the classroom.

In the Romeo and Juliet project, there is a lot of communication and interaction. When assigned jobs, students are paired with other students in the class to either pick the soundtrack, pick/design the costumes, pick the props, write the script, make advertisements or make a social media page. All these jobs include lots of communication. For the soundtrack, students need to talk to one another about choosing the songs appropriate for the scene.  The costume people need to talk to each other, and students from different hours to make sure that the characters stay in the same clothing throughout the whole production. Picking props needs communication because students from other hours may have good ideas that might help, and they need to know the time of when the scene is being shot, which contributes to communication. Writing the script includes lots of communication because all the students need to know if the script is being updating to modern talk, or if the students are keeping it in the original form. Making the advertisements helps create how to catch someone’s eye, and it's a chance for the students to really show their creativity and the students must work together to create them. Making a social media page give the students the opportunity to team up and make different pages for each character and have conversations through the media page. Even though this project had a lot of interaction, it also is very memorable as well.

     In High School, students will do a lot of projects, and experiments, but the ones that they will remember, are the ones that didn't make them sit in a desk all hour being lectured to. The Romeo and Juliet project is a project that almost every single one of the students will remember. When someone asks one of the kids who were involved about Romeo and Juliet, they will remember doing a project of doing the whole story with their Freshman English class. Every student should have that one project that they will always remember, and tell their kids about later in life. If this project hadn't have happened, the students would not completely understand the story of Romeo and Juliet as well as they do after doing the project. Although this project provided lots of memories for the students, it also taught them how to use tech tools.

     The Romeo and Juliet project requires lots of tech tools, including Skype, Blogs, Social Medias such as Twitter, Facebook, etc., Wiki Spaces, and others. Learning how to use Skype helped the students communicate and share ideas with the students in Iowa, which made the project much stronger. Using the Blogs helped lay out what everyone student was doing in their job that was assigned. The Social Medias such as Twitter and Facebook help by getting into character and understanding Romeo and Juliet's point of view. Wiki Spaces helped out the students a lot by being the source of where all the links to everyone’s blogs were. Using and learning how to use tech tools really helps educate the children, but being able to talk to kids in other states is a great way of learning too.

     In the Romeo and Juliet project, the students got to work with kids from the school Van Meter High School, in Iowa. That is such a great opportunity because it gives the kids a chance to see their ideas, and how differently the kids work. Having a time difference is a little tricky, but it the students work around it. Working with kids in other states is valuable because the students will always remember something like that, because most classes don't get that opportunity.

      Students all over the country sit in classrooms getting lectured, taking tests, and have no interaction with the other students. But these students also don't understand the subject as well as students who do big projects, such as the Romeo and Juliet project. Even though reading the story and taking tests would have had value, the Romeo and Juliet project has a lot of value in the classroom.

No comments:

Post a Comment