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You are required to take notes on each scene of the play. The best time to do his would probably be on the day that you have read a particularly scene in class. Your teacher will collect your notes on announced dates and grade their content. The purpose of the notes is to help you understand the play and provide a clear summary to help you review for the objective test in June.

Sample of Note-Taking for Romeo and Juliet: You may follow this general format, which serves as an example. Make sure that you summarize the plot of each scene in each act, and that you make notes on the behaviour, actions, and important lines spoken by characters which reveal their personalities or are otherwise of importance in the play. Use quotations, indicating act, scene, and line, as in the example below.

EXAMPLE for ACT I, sc. ii:

Plot: This scene opens with Paris asking Lord Capulet for permission to court Juliet with a view to marriage. Lord Capulet feels that his daughter, being just fourteen, is yet too young for marriage. Capulet invites Paris to a ball that the Capulet family is giving that night so that he may get to know Juliet. The Clown (a Capulet servant) is sent to deliver the invitations to those on the guest list. As Fate would have it - in a typical Shakespearean ploy - the Clown cannot read, and upon meeting Romeo and Benvolio, asks them to read the list for him. On hearing that Rosaline will be at this ball, Benvolio suggests to Romeo that they gate-crash the party so that when he sees the other pretty girls there, he will quickly get over Rosaline. Romeo agrees to go, but without enthusiasm.

Characters:

Lord Capulet: is shown to be a very concerned father who just wants his daughter to be happy. " � Woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart, / My will to her consent is but a part;" (I: ii, 16-17).

Romeo: is still in a bad mood because of his thwarted love which, by the way he talks, is no more than an infatuation (not real love). He thus only agrees to go to the ball to "rejoice in splendour of mine own." (I:ii, 106).

Benvolio: shows genuine concern for Romeo by suggesting they attend the ball.

Paris: although vying for the love of Juliet, Paris is a good, noble character - one to be admired. At the opening of the scene he has the dignity to comment to Lord Capulet on how sad and wrong the feud is: "pity 'tis you liv'd at odds so long." (I: ii, 5).

The Clown: referred to in many editions of the play as "the Servant". He is important to the plot because it is his inability to read which fatefully leads to the meeting of Romeo and Juliet. Note: he does not speak in Iambic Pentameter (Blank Verse) - an indication that he is not a noble or serious character.

Other Important Lines: Your teacher will draw your attention to important lines while reading the play in class. Here are some examples from this scene:

"When well-apparel'd April on the heel / Of limping winter treads�" (I: ii, 27-28). "Take thou some new infection to thy eye, / And the rank poison of the old will die." (I: ii, 51-52). "Compare her face with some that I shall show, / And I will make thee think they swan a crow." (I: ii, 91-92).

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