Body Biography Project

Romeo & Juliet

Assignment Overview

Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is full of colorful characters with lofty goals and complicated personalities and situations, and it takes skillful literary analysis to unwrap their complexities. For this project, you will use these skills to create a visual and written representation illustrating important aspects of your character’s life in Romeo and Juliet. In groups no bigger than six, you will create a “body biography” for one of six characters in the play: Romeo, Juliet, Friar Lawrence, Nurse, Tybalt, or Mercutio. This means that you will focus on elements related to certain body parts, which will be explained in more detail later. You will use visual symbols to represent your character and facets of his/her life. You will also use what you deem to be thethree most important quotes (said by the character or about the character) in Romeo and Juliet that describe your character. Your choices should be analytical, accurate, and creative! This project’s due date is TBA.

Ideas to Keep in Mind

  • Placement: carefully choose the placement of your text, quotations, and artwork! For instance, a quote about love at first sight should probably be placed either near the eyes or the heart.
  • Motivation: what is your character’s objection? What is his/her goal? What drives him/her to action? how can this be illustrated and represented?
  • Virtues and Vices: what are your character’s most admirable traits? His/her worse?
  • Color: what colors do you most associate with your character? Colors are often symbolic; choose them carefully.
  • Symbols: what objects do you associate with your character? Does R&J mention objects that you could use? If not, choose objects that you think correspond with your character.
  • Inside, outside: consider both how your character appears to others and what you know about the character’s inner self. Do these ideas correspond?
  • Changes: how does your character change within the work?

Required Body Parts

  • Heart: what does this character love most? What are his/her emotions? What does s/he feel most deeply?
  • Head: what problems or situations or people is your character thinking about? What is on his/her mind? How does his/her brain work? What is the psychology of your character? (You can also add facial features to this list: eyes, mouth, ears; imagine the possibilities!!)
  • Back/spine: what motivates your character the most? What is the core of his/her being? What keeps your character going?
  • Hands: what does your character hold in his/her hands? Items that are associated with the character (either literally or figuratively) should be included.
  • Feet: what does your character stand on? In other words, what fundamental belief is most important to your character?

Quotations

Of the five required body parts (keep in mind, you can add more, and are encouraged to!), you have to pick three of those to expand on. In other words, you must find a quote or passage from R&J to correspond with at least three of your symbols. Prove that what you are representing is correct using the text.

Creativity

There are a lot of different ways that you can create this biography. You can draw it out on a piece of paper (if you need a large sheet of paper, please ask so we can get one for you – a normal sheet of paper is not going to be enough for this project). You can create a scrapbook of the different body parts. You can do a slideshow. Etc, etc, etc. Of course, if you want to use other quotes (lyrics, famous quotes, quotes from other works) in addition to the ones from the play, you can. Use your head! Try to be different. Create something of which to be proud.

Standards and Rubric

ELA.9.RL.1.b: analyzes characters in drama (10 points)

  • Understand your character’s needs, wants, and motivations (10 points)

ELA.9.RL.1.a: identifies and analyzes symbolism (10 points)

  • Show comprehension of symbolism through appropriate choices (10 points)

ELA.9.RC.2.b: responds in multiple modes of discourse (10 points)

  • Create (and put effort into) a body biography that represents one character in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (5 points)
  • Explain through a presentation (with obvious effort) how your body biography is representative of that character (5 points)

ELA.9.W.2: conveys information and ideas from primary sources (5 points)

  • Utilize information directly from the play (dialogue, stage directions) to make decisions (5 points)

ELA.9.LSV.2.c: delivers presentations that incorporate the same elements found in writing and literary analysis (5 points)

  • Use proper English, engagement, introductions, conclusions, etc. in your presentation (2 points)
  • Use literary language (symbolizes, represents, character, motivation, etc.) in your presentation (3 points)