The Epic Romeo and Juliet Project Update 13

The Epic Romeo and Juliet Project Update 13

Subtitled: Fin~

Here is the link to the movie clips in case you missed it. Please tweet your thoughts using the #VMGPS tag so we can follow them. TIA!

I prefer to write about things when they are fresh in my mind. The movie and post movie discussion ended about 20 minutes ago and I just wanted to share my thoughts. 

This has been the best lesson I have ever been part of in my 10 years of teaching. Words will never be able to fully express how proud of my students and the students of Van Meter I truly am. 

The bumps in the road and the hiccups in filming were to be expected, but the kids pulled together and made a hell of a movie that I will hold dear until my retirement. To be honest, I might show that version to future classes as an example of a Romeo and Juliet production. 

I only had about a third of my students there because of a variety of sports and other programs, but the ones that showed up brought friends and family to enjoy the experience with them. We talked about what worked and what didn't. Kids shared some behind the scenes stories that were silly. I had 25 or so students engaged in Shakespeare on a Saturday! 

The only part that was disappointing was that I only had one other district person attend the movie. (Thanks Mr. Walsh!) I emailed all of my building admins, my entire department, staff members in the administration building (including superintendents) and the entire school board and only one showed. I knew some couldn't make it and they emailed me, but I wish they would have been there. Not for me, but to show the support for the students and the work they did. Maybe next time. 

I would like to end this series of posts on a positive note though. If there was one thing I would like other educators to learn after following this crazy adventure, it's that you should never give up on a dream lesson. There will be naysayers, obstacles and time constraints, but if you stay committed, amazing things can happen. Dream big, aim high and follow through and you can do anything you want. 

Now, what am I going to do next year...

- Nick

The Epic Romeo and Juliet Project: Update 12

The Epic Romeo and Juliet Project: Update 12

Subtitled: The Premiere

If you click the picture below, you will be taken to the site that is hosting our 5 Acts. A very special thanks to Steve Geresy for taking the time to upload those for us. We will all be watching the world premiere at the same time, so please feel free to drop a comment in this comment box or send us a tweet using the #VMGPS hashtag. We would love to show the kids your thoughts and support.

Thanks to everyone for making this possible.

Enjoy.

The Epic Romeo and Juliet Proejct Update 11

The Epic Romeo and Juliet Project Update 11

Subtitled: The Long And Winding Road

It is the day before the premiere of the Epic Romeo and Juliet Project Movie. This project started out in my brain driving home almost a year ago. Tomorrow, I see my crazy plan come true with the help of the great students of Grosse Pointe South, the wonderful students and staff (Shannon and Shawn) of Vane Meter High School and the tremendous support of my PLN. 

I had some major technical problems today as I tried to set up and test the auditorium for Skype. My school laptop crashed and my school profile needed to be reset. I spend both of my free periods and my lunch trying to solve the problems and I still needed to stay after school for an hour or so and make sure everything worked )Thanks Shannon and Steve for the Skype help). 

I'm not sure how to feel about everything. I know that I'm beyond tired and I owe @JenniferPro some type of amazing gift for putting up with my stress while I put together this project and edcampDetroit (Next Saturday May 7). I want to say I am proud of my kids, but I feel like that word does not even begin to do justice to how I feel. I've seen something take place over the past 3 months I have never seen in my teaching career. It is something that is not possible to quantify on any state exam or bubble test. 

Saturday, at 1:30 pm EST, the premiere will take place in Grosse Pointe and Van Meter. I would like to invite you to watch the movie with us and let us know how you feel. When I receive the embedding codes for the 5 acts of the play, I will put them in a post and have it go live at the same time we start watching. Feel free to leave comments and tweet us your thoughts. Please use the #VMGPS hash tag so we can see what everyone thinks. (If someone knows how to archive a hash tag, I would appreciate any help you could give me.)

Thanks again to all of you for your support and I can't wait to show off what these amazing kids accomplished. 

- @TheNerdyTeacher

The Epic Rome and Juliet Project: Update 10

The Epic Romeo and Juliet Project: Update 10

Subtitled: A Bad Break

We filmed for about 4.5 hours today and it was not without drama. (Pun very much intended)

We were filming the end of the play where (SPOILER ALERT!) Romeo kills Paris, kills himself and Juliet kills herself. It's a very serious scene that needs most of the characters to be present. 

We were supposed to start filming at 1, but didn't get going to almost 1:45 because we were missing a camera, cameraman and a few actors. The cameraman never showed and the camera was dropped off by a dad of a sick student. We had students show up to help and they were drafted into acting roles. 

We were still missing the Friar. We need him for the entire third scene. The Friar, who happens to be a third cousin on mine, had not arrived and that was not like him. Then I received this text with a picture. 

"Eric's Broken Arm"

You have to be kidding me! The third most important character in the third scene was out with a broken arm. The directors and I had to sit down and re-write the script. The friar was removed from the entire scene and the lines of other actors needed to be changed so they would not address the friar. We cut about 3-4 pages from the script. The kids rolled with the changes as best as they could. 

We were able to use the school's auditorium for the end scene and the death scenes turned out pretty well. The kids were a bit rambunctious at times, but we got some great shots. The directors and the cameraman did an amazing job. I'm very proud of my Romeo and Juliet. They did an amazing job playing dead. The rest of the cast and crew came together and did an awesome job.

We need to re-shoot Act 3 Scene 1 on Monday after school and a small portion of Act 3 Scene 2 on Wednesday in class. 

We are almost there and I can't wait to see what Van Meter has to share. 

The next update will hopefully be the last about filming and I can start to focus on the editing and the music. 

Take it easy!

- Nick

The Epic Romeo and Juliet Project: Update 9

Subtitled: Teamwork anyone?

Just a small update this week. We had our first bump in the road. The kids had a huge scheduling conflict where the Nurse had a re-scheduled lacrosse game against our rival and could not make it to filming! With some quick work, the kids were able to change the filming times and accommodate everyone and their schedules.

It might not seem like that huge of deal, but to the kids, it was crazy. Kids offered up missing baseball practice to make it easy to change the filming to another date. I was really proud of the way the kids pulled together to make sure that the scenes could be filmed. It is just another instance where the kids show how dedicated they are to the project.

Here are a couple of things to I want to share with you as a bit of a teaser.

The kids are going to be done filming Acts 1,3 and 5 on Saturday. The kids are pumped and I can't wait to see the final production.

- Nick

Epic Romeo and Juliet Project: Update 8

Subtitled: No Joke Here

I read this on one of my student's blogs.

"The overall expirience I've had has been amazing. I never knew that I could be an actor, let alone I had never had tried to be one. Acting in the play has also been a great way for me to become more comfortable in public speaking. Public speaking is something that I will have to do my entire life, acting in Romeo and Juliet has made me actually like being the center of attention."

Makes the project worth it for me.

The Epic Romeo and Juliet Project: Update 7

Subtitled: Are we there yet?

Well, we have finished the first act of the play. It was quite the event. I put in a 14 hour day at school so the kids could decorate the cafeteria and film scene 5. Two hour of filming paid off with an amazing 13 minutes of footage. I'm not being sarcastic at all. I was moved by the motivation and dedication the students showed during the process. They had fun, but got the work done.

One of my favorite parts of the filming on Monday was the fact that kids from my other classes showed up to help. Some moved tables and others helped "block" the scenes while the director was working on other scenes and camera setup. Another student showed up with a bag filled with props and costumes for the extras to wear and he is only in charge of props for a different act. The fact that all of the students are coming together to make sure the entire project is a success.

I've already started to piece together Act 1 and it looks wonderful. My Romeo and Juliet absolutely NAIL their first encounter. They sold the love in their eyes. I was moved by their dedication and acting in general. They are a couple of special kids. Really, all of my students have been pretty kick butt. I've showed some of the rough cuts to the director and cameraman and they like what they put together. I still need add music, (cough, cough @TaylorSwift13, cough, cough) and some transition slides. I hope to finish each act as they get done so I can use my Spring Break to get ready for the rest of the school year and @edcampDetroit

My students Skyped with Van Meter today and we exchanged some more ideas regarding filming and scripts. The kids get very excited to talk to the VM kids. We also had a couple of guests in the room as well. A student teacher in my department and a school board member stopped by to see the fun. When I told the kids that a school board member was coming to watch, they were excited. It is great to have other people stop by the class. It makes the kids feel that the work they are doing goes beyond the classroom. I really encourage all administrators to stop by classrooms and let the kids see you. It does have an impact on the kids.

A student told me they were getting questions from friends in other classes. Word is spreading around the school and the kids are getting excited. For many, they have never had this much attention on a project they have worked on. This raises the bar for them, but they seem to be excited about it. They want to do well and they want to impress everyone else. It really is something I'm proud of.

Still tired, but every day I go to work, I get to see excited students engaged in Shakespeare. As an English teacher, I couldn't be happier. I know the subtitle says, "Are we there yet?", but I know that a large part of me will be very sad to see this unit end. I haven't invested this much energy in a project of this scale since I used to do my Mock Trial of Mark Twain years back. I thought that was work, but compared to The Epic Romeo and Juliet Project, it's a worksheet.

I hope everyone is doing well. There will be some screen shots of the filming and some goofy behind the scenes footage posted on the Epic Romeo and Juliet Wiki. Please feel free to head to the wiki and check out some of the blogs the kids have created. They would love to get comments from you.

Thanks again for all of the support everyone has given me as I take this journey. It has ups and downs, but I couldn't imagine sharing it with anyone else. Have a great week and talk to you soon.

- Nick

Epic Romeo and Juliet Update 6

Subtitled: Game Time!

I handed out the finalized scripts to all of the actors, directors, cameramen and any other student that wanted one. The kids were excited to have a legit script to place in their binder. It was funny to see. I wasn't expecting that time of response of a script. I think it made it very real for some of them.

I'm still getting lots of questions about Ms. Swift and the soundtrack. I still have not heard anything. I think it is great that people are still trying to reach out to Ms. Swift and help my students. You all have been amazing. Some very interesting conversations have been started on blogs about the fair use of songs and copyrights. I think I'm more proud of the fact that people are talking about an important topic in education. As educators, we need to push ourselves to talk about these kind of things and set an example for our students. My kids would love to have Ms. Swift's songs for their movie, but are ok if they can't use them. I personally think it is pushing them to look even harder at other musicq they are allowed to use. It might be nice to possibly give an unknown artist a chance. When we post this movie online, who knows who might end up watching it?

I'm tired. I have never been this tired working on a school project. This has been then most tiring experience in my life, but I don't know it until after the school day. I feed of the kid's energy all day and then I'm drained. I can't imagine doing this year to year. This might be an every other year type of project. That makes me a bit sad for students in the next year that will want to do this project, but I will just be too tired. On the other hand, it allows me to think of something even crazier to try.

Maybe I'll have everyone try and get Mr. Bieber involved in my next project. :-P

- Nick

Open Letter to @TaylorSwift13 - The Final Update

This is the final post regarding Ms. Swift. Since my initial post and the follow up post, I have not heard back from Ms. Swift.

Some people would be angry or annoyed, but I'm not. She has over 5 million followers and people tweet to her every minute.

I'm actually proud of what I have seen these past 20 hours. I had teachers from all over the planet try and connect me to a singer to help my students with a project. Ms. Swifts songs do not make or break the project, but people wanted to help anyway. People continued to reach out to @TaylorSwift13 during the day. People tried connecting with other celebrities to help make the connection. It was truly inspiring.

I told the kids of the effort today and they were amazed. I estimate over 10,000 tweets were sent to her. I'm still a Top Tweet when you search her name on Twitter. My PLN is nothing short of amazing.

I'm sure many of my followers will be happy to hear I will be stopping the mass Tweets. Their columns will be safe from Taylor Tweets. :-)

Thanks to everyone who has helped me during this crazy Twitter adventure. I wish it had ended on a happier not, but it is what it is. If you want to send her a tweet from time to time, that would be nice. I need to get back to helping my kids complete The Epic Romeo and Juliet Project!

I will leave you these important words to live by,

"If you ever drop your keys in a river of molten lava, let em go, because, man, they're gone." -- Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy


- Nick

Open Letter to @TaylorSwift13 - Update

It has been less than 12 hours since the initial Open Letter to Taylor Swift and I wanted to comment on a couple of things.

The biggest item is that I have not heard back from Ms. Swift or any of her people. I look at it as a good thing because I have not heard a yes OR a no. It gives me hope for another day or so.
You guys helped my Tweet become a Top Tweet when you search @TaylorSwift13. That is amazing!

Also, I became a trending topic in Canada!

This really shows me two things. 1. There were no Hockey games anywhere in Canada Tuesday night. 2. Canada has some of the most amazing educators in the world and I'm proud to have them in my PLN.

I received some tweets that suggested I contact the record company and that Ms. Swift does not have the right to let you use the music. She might not, but if I am able to connect with her she might be able to persuade the record execs to let me use the two songs for the student production.

I was also connected with music lawyers and people were tweeting celebrities in the hope the would pass it on to their followers. I'm not sure if any RTed the post, but it was such a nice gesture from people that I do not even know.

Lastly, I want to say that if Ms. Swift never contacts me about the songs I am not going to be mad or tell kids what a terrible person she is. She is currently on tour in Europe and is a very busy young lady. I understood this was a long shot and have been blown away by the support I have received as it is.

This has been an amazing lesson for me. I see how strong the connection of Twitter can be for educators and hope others who saw what happened see it as well. This will also be an important lesson for my kids. It would have been easy to just put the songs in the production and nobody would have known outside a couple of small communities. I wanted to show the kids that it is important to try and connect with artists and get their permission. No matter how this ends, my kids and I are going to have learned a valuable lesson and that is why I'm a teacher.

Thanks again for all of the help PLN. Let's try this one more time today and see if we can reach Ms. Swift.

Open Letter to @TaylorSwift13 - http://bit.ly/eFOHHP - Please help students for a class project! Please RT!

Open Letter to @TaylorSwift13

This open letter is to Ms. Swift in an effort to get her permission to use a couple of her songs for a student production of Romeo and Juliet.

Dear Ms. Swift,

My name is Nicholas Provenzano and I am a high school English teacher at Grosse Pointe South High School in Grosse Pointe Farms, MI. I started a big project this year with my Freshman English class. They are producing an updated version of Romeo and Juliet with another high school in Van Meter, IA. The goal of the project is to have students dive into Romeo and Juliet by working on different parts of a production. The kids are very excited about the project and have been working very hard for the better part of a month. We are looking to premiere our finished film on April 30th just for the students and parents at both schools. We are not selling tickets or copies of the production, just showing the school the awesome project the kids completed. You can read more about the specifics on the project wiki.

One part of the project is creating the soundtrack to accompany the production. While reviewing the work the students had completed, I noticed that two of your songs appeared regularly on my students' play lists, "Love Story" and "You Belong With Me". When asked by the students to include them in the finished movie I told them I think these are wonderfully written songs that would be perfect for the story they have written, but they are not allowed to use the songs without the artist's permission. They were bummed, but are still working hard to create a great production. However, I'm not one to give up that easy and let my kids down.

This is where I hope you can help. I want to ask for your permission to use your two songs in the student's production of Romeo and Juliet. My kids have been working hard all year and this project is the culmination of months of dedication. I always tell kids that hard work pays off and you are rewarded in the end. I cannot think of anything more fitting that adding these songs to our project. It never hurts to ask and the best way I thought I could get a hold of you was to use my connection with teachers from all over the world to reach out to you in the hopes of a response. I would love to surprise my students and let them know they got permission. I know this is something they would remember for years to come and your approval would be the cherry on top of an already amazing cake.

My goal as a teacher is to try and inspire kids to become passionate about literature and express it in their writing. My students have shown an amazing dedication to this project and I could not be prouder of their effort. Please consider allowing them to use your songs in the production. If you want, I could possibly persuade the directors to give you a walk-on role as a thank you. :-)

Thanks for your time and hope all things are well where you are.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at Nicholas.Provenzano@gpschools.org, @TheNerdyTeacher, or my school Twitter account @MrProvenzano.

Thanks again.


- Nicholas Provenzano
Grosse Pointe South English Teacher

The Epic Romeo and Juliet Joint Project

I've been talking about this project over the past few months and it is finally ready to start. On Monday, my students will begin the most ambitious project I have ever put together.

Last summer, I went to Denver to experience the fun of ISTE. I was able to meet Shannon Miller from Van Meter and an amazing friendship started. I had an idea for a Romeo and Juliet Project, but after talking with Shannon and English teacher Shawn Hyer, we thought it would be cool to work together.

The students of Grosse Pointe South and Van Meter high schools are going to put together a joint production of Romeo and Juliet! Using all of the web tools available, the students are going to act, direct, write, design props, create costumes and everything else over the next 10 week.The acts have been divided and the students are excited.

Below is a the Slide Share of the handout that explains the different roles the students will have. One of my favorite parts of the project is that every student will be blogging about their experience during the process. Actors will write about their lines, directors will write about their visions for their act and the advertising team will post their ads and explain the thought process behind their creation.

When everything is filmed, we will have a joint viewing party Saturday April 30th. I hope to set up a U-Stream of the event, but I'm not sure how that is going to work just yet. The goal of the joint viewing is to have the students run a backchannel while watching the movie. It will be interesting to hear what kids think about the final product.

I will be keeping a running blog on how the project is going and I will also provide links to the student work when they get up and running. I'm excited about the various curve balls that are going to be coming my way.

Epic Romeo and Juliet Project

View more documents from Nicholas Provenzano.

Please leave comments, questions and/or suggestions below. I'm excited to hear what you think.

The Nerdy Teacher's Epic Romeo and Juliet Unit Idea

I have this idea for a unit on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. It would involve all 3 sections of my Freshmen English Students (Grade 9). That would be around 80-90 students. By dividing the play into thirds, each class would be responsible for putting on their piece of the play by the end of the semester. Using Web 2.0 tools and class time, students would be working within the class and with the other classes to create 1 performance. This idea is still in its infancy stages, so there is still plenty of stuff to work out, but I'm really excited about where this lesson could go. Please take a look at my ideas for the different parts of the play and let me know your thoughts.

Acting - I will have about 90 students in my 3 classes. Not everyone will be able to, or even want to, act. I will divide the play into thirds and students can audition for the various parts per class. This way kids that want to act will be able to act. We have a great Drama and Show Choir group at my high school, so there will be plenty of students that will want to have a role. By dividing the play into thirds, the classes will  be able to work together in their class without having to worry about meeting with other students in different hours. These students will do research by watching other versions of the play and researching the historical basis of the characters. This will allow them to have a sense of the history of these type of characters and it will provide them a better understanding of what Shakespeare wanted to see performed on the stage.

Directing - I'm not sure about this one. If I don't have a student do it, I would have to. I don't mind doing it, but I would like the students to have as much ownership of the entire play as possible. I would provide guidance to the student director, but I would allow them to run the show. This is something I would need to give more consideration.

Script Writing - (Maybe) I'm considering allowing students to take the play and adapt it or update it. I will be doing this lesson at the end of the year, so I will have a good idea on who the best and strongest writers are. This would allow these students to have a role in the project they could excel yet. This would be tough to do because of dividing the play into three parts, but a Google Doc or other collaborative sites could make this easier.

Costumes - There are always students who want to design costumes. This would be a great chance for students to design and put together costumes for their 1/3 of the play. Depending on whether there is an adaptation of the play or not, students could do research and present rationales as to why they dressed the actors in certain ways. This allows those artistic students a chance to express their understanding of characters and the roles they play in the story.

Set/Prop Design - Designing a set is not an easy task, but broken into thirds will allow students the room to be creative and manage their time. The really hands-on students will have a chance to design and construct a set for the play. They will need to explain how they built the set and the reasons they chose to include or exclude props.

Advertising -I'm really excited about this part of the project. This will really allow those students with various talents to shine. I would love to see students create a blog updating the progress of the actors, the set, the script, etc. A twitter account designed to creat interest in the play. Posters, fliers, websites, etc would be created by the students to help promote the production. The sky is the limit for this part of the production. This could involve so many different types of technology. This would require a little more collaboration between the classes, but work for this part of the project could easily be divided and worked on using various sites to facilitate collaboration. Viral marketing campaign would be great to start. Creating Facebook accounts for the characters and having them interact with actual students in preparation of the play would be fun. Twitter accounts could be used the same way. Again, the sky is the limit.

Soundtrack - We have a great orchestra and band at my high school. I could have some students in one class learn and play music for certain parts of the play. If I'm lacking in band kids, I could have students create a playlist for their third of the play and submit it with detailed explanations as to why certain songs are chosen for certain scenes. If it is a period piece, students would research period music and explain its role in the play.

These are just a few of the ideas I've had cross my brain since Wednesday afternoon. I'm sure there are more things I can add and eventually subtract from this lesson idea. In theory, it would be the best lesson I've created since my Mock Trial of Mark Twain. Many hours will be spent planning and organizing this project, but I think this project will allow all students access to a great literary work that is too often dismissed by students. Please leave a comment after reading this post if you have ideas, concerns, questions, suggestions, etc. Your help in making this lesson a real thing would be very much appreciated. Bonus: If you help make this idea happen, you get to read my posts about next year. It's win-win for everyone. :-)