Appendix
It is necessary to provide a synopsis of each text for teachers and students who may choose to only read excerpts of the aforementioned dramas and the novel.
Romeo and Juliet
William Shakespeare presents a timeless topic: young lovers from families that have a long-standing feud (Capulet and Montague) fall in love and secretly marry. Juliet is a Capulet; Romeo is a Montague. Romeo learns the difference between infatuation and love while Juliet demonstrates a rapid leap from childhood to womanhood. However, things escalate out of control as Romeo kills Juliet's cousin, Tybalt, in a duel. Romeo is banned from Verona and commits suicide when he discovers Juliet, apparently dead, by his side. He doesn't realize that she took a sleeping potion to avoid marrying Paris as her parents desired. The tragedy is that she is sleeping and awakens to find Romeo dead and stabs herself with a dagger.
Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar is a political play, with political issues at the root of a tragic conflict. It features a great general who would be king, but who, because of pride and ambition, meets a brutal death. Shakespeare's story, based on history, examines the reasons why Julius Caesar is assassinated, as well as what subsequently happens to his murderers.
The play implies that good government must be based on morality and not ambition. Caesar dominates only the first half of the tragedy; yet, his influence extends beyond his death. Caesar's ghost appears to Brutus the night before the battle of Philippi and both Brutus and Cassius refer to Caesar before dying. Despite this Marc Antony declares him the "noblest Roman of them all." Brutus keeps readers captivated as he makes mistakes that have disastrous consequences.
The Help
Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone. Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while her bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.
Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own. Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk—because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times and they believe that sometimes lines should be crossed.
Key Passages for Juliet
I'll look to like, if looking liking move. But no more deep will I endart mine eye. Than your consent gives strength to make it fly. Romeo and Juliet (1.3.103-15)
O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name, Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, And I'll no longer be a Capulet. Romeo and Juliet (2.2.36-39)
Although I joy in thee, I have no joy of this contract tonight. It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden… Romeo and Juliet (2.2.123-125)
O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris, From off the battlements of any tower….
Or bid me go into a new-made grave And hide me with a dead man in his shroud….
And I will do it without fear or doubt, To live an unstained wife to my sweet love.
Romeo and Juliet (4.1. 78-90)
O, happy dagger, This is thy sheath. There rust, and let me die. Romeo and Juliet (5.3. 174-175)
Key Passages for Romeo
Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight, For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night. Romeo and Juliet (1.5.59-60)
She speaks. O, speak again, bright angel, for thou art As glorious to this night…. As is a winged messenger of heaven… Romeo and Juliet (2.2.28-31)
And fire-eyed fury be my conduct now… Either thou or I, or both, must go with him. Romeo and Juliet (3.1.129,134)
And, lips…seal with a righteous kiss…A dateless bargain to engrossing death…. Thus with a kiss I die. Romeo and Juliet (5.3.113-120)
Key Passages for Marcus Brutus
O, he sits high in the people's hearts, And that which would appear offense in us His countenance, like richest alchemy, Will change to virtue and to worthiness. Julius Caesar (1.3.162-165)
Let's be sacrificers, but not butchers…. Let's kill him boldly, but not wrathfully. Let's carve him as a dish fit for the Gods, Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds. Julius Caesar (2.1.179-187)
It shall advantage more than do us wrong. Julius Caesar (3.1.267)
Marc Anthony declares, "this was the noblest Roman of them all: All the conspirators, save only he, did that they did in envy of great Caesar; He, only in a general honest thought And common good to all, made one of them. Julius Caesar (5.5)
Key Passages for Aibileen
Five months after the funeral, I lifted myself up out a bed…. But it weren't too long before I seen something in me had changed. A bitter seed was planted inside of me. And I just didn't feel so accepting anymore. The Help (p. 3)
Asking do I want to change things. The Help (p. 13)
Which reminds me what I don't want a think about, that Miss Leefolt's building me a bathroom outside because she think I'm diseased. And Miss Skeeter asking don't I want to change things, like changing Jackson, Mississippi, gone be like changing a light bulb. The Help (p.28)
I been in some tense situations, but to have Minny on one side of my living room and Miss Skeeter on the other, and the topic at hand be what it feel like being Negro and working for a white woman. Law, it's a wonder they hadn't been an injury. The Help (p.214)
Implementing District Standards
This unit addresses the following Pennsylvania State Literacy Reading/Writing Standards:
1.1.Learning to Read Independently
a.Locate various texts, media, and transitional resources for assigned and independent projects before reading.
b.Analyze the structure of informational materials explaining how authors used these to achieve their purposes.
d. Identify, describe, evaluate, and synthesize the essential ideas in text. Assess those reading strategies that were most effective in learning from a variety of texts.
g. Demonstrate, after reading, an understanding and interpretation of both fiction and nonfiction texts, including public documents.
1.2 Learning to Read in all Content Areas
b. Use and understand a variety of media and evaluate the quality of material produced.
c. Produce work in at least one literary genre that follows the convention of that genre.
1.3 Reading, Analyzing, and Interpreting Literature
a. Read and understand works of literature.
b. Analyze the relationships, uses, and effectiveness of literary elements used by one or more authors in similar genres including characterization, setting, plot, theme, point of view, tone, and style.
f. Read and respond to nonfiction and fiction including poetry and drama
1.4 Types of Writing
a. Write complex informational pieces (i.e. analysis, evaluations, and essays).
1.5 Quality of Writing
a. Write with a sharp, distinct focus
b. Write using well-developed content appropriate for the topic
e. Revise writing to improve style, word choice, sentence variety, and subtlety of meaning after rethinking how questions of purpose, audience, and genre have been addressed.
1.6 Speaking and Listening
a. Listen to others.
b. Listen to selections of literature
d. Contribute to discussions
e. Participate in small and large group discussions and presentations.
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