Today we covered 3.1 — Tybalt kills Mercutio, Romeo kills Tybalt, and the prince banishes Romeo.

“When you get to the third act of a Shakespeare play,” I’d explained to the kids yesterday, “everything changes.”

I’ve always especially enjoyed the lesson we do for 3.1. The kids select various divisions of the scene, read and discuss those divisions, and then prepare a tableaux vivant to summarize it. Kids who get the latter part of the scene quickly call me over to check their understanding.

“Wait, Tybalt is dead? How did that happen?”

“You mean Mercutio is gone? What?!”

My answer to all such inquiries is the same: “When you guys present your tableauxs, you’ll see.”