Romeo and Juliet

I've always loved learning about Shakespeare. When I was in sixth grade, I had the opportunity to be a part of a play at my elementary called,"Snippets from Shakespeare." Each class in the sixth grade performed five different scenes from Shakespeare's plays. I played the part of Laertes in the "Hamlet" fight scene. Back then, I remember I really enjoyed reading Shakespeare's works. It's really fun to decode the complicated writing figure out what it means in modern day English. When you first look at a passage from his writing, it looks so deep, and you think that there is no possible way that you could ever understand it. Then if you use your brain a little bit, and figure out all of the metaphors in the writing, it isn't too hard to decode. Shakespeare has so many great things that are written in his plays, and once I could understand what in the heck he was talking about, I learned some really cool things.

One of the days while we were reading Romeo and Juliet, we looked at many different quotes for our "Quote of the Day" in Mr. Thompson's class. Almost every little saying had some great advice that we should all learn to follow. One of my favorite ones said, "A light heart lives long." You wouldn't think that something this simple could have so much truth in it. There were many other great quotes that gave good advice about honesty and other life choices.

I feel like my writing has gotten much better since we started reading Shakespeare. His plays make you realize that you can create a masterpiece with words that we use every day of our lives. Of course, there are also some really great insults added into his writing. It can be difficult to make it rhyme at times and to make the words fit just right. After a lot of rearranging and changing up some words, I wrote a sonnet for my wiki assignment. I decided that I didn't want to write a letter or a journal entry because I knew everyone would do that, and I wanted mine to be different. Once I made a word pool of words that rhyme, I chose to speak from Friar Laurence's point of view, and I got the general idea of what I wanted to say, it wasn't so hard to put the words down onto paper. So, here is my sonnet that I wrote from the point of view of Friar Laurence about trying to decide whether or not to marry Romeo and Juliet.


                                                      Friar Laurence's Sonnet 

"He's mad," thought I, when Romeo first crossed my door,
Real love? Is it conceivable whilst meeting but last night?
Could Romeo without his Juliet consider himself poor?
In the sight of God, could the love they share be right?
One from the house of Capulet, the other Montague,
Their young love discovered, would not their parents please.
If conjoined in matrimony, lethal would be the feud.
Young lovers, their minds held captive, do not think of things like these.
I could believe this love is true, but how with endless woes?
Doth youthful passion possess the power to overcome such strife?
The Montagues, though warring, must accept the House of Rose,
Or else this life-long prejudice could turn them toward the knife.
Though Juliet is but a girl, and Romeo just a young boy,
Perhaps the union of these two could bring about some joy.