Junior Cert Drama and Fiction texts.

peanuthead

Hi all

I am doing Lord of the Flies with my Junior Certs and I have to choose a play now. My choices are Romeo and Juliet or Merchant.

Its a mixed class, boys and girls, high ability.

I haven't actually read The Merchant Of Venice before but am familiar with the basic plot. It was my initial choice of text because I hadn't studied it before.

However, now that I think of it, although there is death and betrayal in Romeo and Juliet, I'm thinking that, alongside LOTF it may be a better choice as it may appeal more to the girls in the class, there being a very prominent female character.

That said, I admit I haven't read MOV so I could be missing out on key info here.

I would be grateful if some English teachers could give me some pointers on what they think.

BTW, I know there is no comparative element to the JC, I just want to cater for all tastes, plus, covering two texts that have the same themes, issues, characters... may be worthwhile for a weaker group, but these students would get bored easily doing the same thing.

Thanks
P

Sunny!!

I'm not an english teacher, but a student:)

I think merchant of Venice would cater for the girls. Jessica is a very strong character and is central to the play and ensures a relatively happy ending to the play

alabandical

I've done Romeo and Juliet before with students who were pretty good. I think it will appeal more to both boys and girls than MoV. It shares some similarities with LotF but there is plenty of contrast there too. It's also a nice introduction to Shakespeare setting them up for the Leaving.

peanuthead

I have thought about it a lot over the weekend, and I've decided to go with R&J in the end.

Thank you to you both for your input.

Macushlablue

Hope it goes well...I've done R and J with lots of different classes, some very academic and some quite weak, and they all loved it. I think it's because they can relate to feuds, arguments, family issues etc!