"Romeo & Juliet": A Lyrical Love

The famous "Balcony Scene"

 Romeo and Juliet has long been considered one of the worlds classic love stories— but is that entirely fair? One of the things we will explore during this unit will be the clues that have led some readers to believe that these young people were madly in love, while others seem to think that the pair were simply obsessed with each another.

 In this lesson we're going to look at the lyrics of different love songs, and analyze them in order to decipher what "romance" and / or "love" means to the writers of these songs. Just like poets, lyricists  don't always just "come out and say it", ya know? The assignment is to pick a love song and explain which parts of it are meant to be romantic or represent a romantic relationship, and then write why you believe them to be this way. You must find at least four examples in the song, and remember that you don't have to find it romantic for your own life, it just has to has to be something that you know could be identified as such.

To understand some of these lyrics you may need to use your knowledge of metaphors, similes or cultural references (such as historical events, literature, etc.), while other terms and lyrics may be more obvious. Here are some sites you should use to get your lyrics: http://www.letssingit.com/ - http://www.lyrics.com/ - http://www.metrolyrics.com/

In your blog post, please include a video where the song is used. This can be the music video, lyric video, or a fan-made video. Totally up to you. You may choose any song you wish as long as you can apply it to the theme of "love" and / or "romance". If you are having trouble picking a song, see these sites for suggestions: Top 100 Love Songs - Classic Wedding Songs - Best Love Songs of the Past Decade

If only Romeo had brought his boombox to the
balcony... maybe things would have ended
differently.

Instructions:
1.) Pick a love song.
2.) Find the lyrics.
3.) Analyze the lyrics. Put a word or phrase that sums up the idea behind a line or a few lines. These will become "headers" later on, and you will need at least four headers. This may be easier if you print them out and then write key words or phrases on the paper right next to the lyrics, but you can certainly do this in a word document as well. An example of this step in a word processor can be found here: Example Part A.
4.) Take all of the terms, ideas or references that you identified as "romantic" or relating to "love", and use them as headers so you may write your thoughts more deeply underneath. See here for an example: Example Part B.
5.) Create a blog post and title it "Lyrical Love".
6.) Find a video of your song and post it at the top of your blog post. Write the name of the song underneath it underlined and a size or two larger than the font used in the rest of the blog.
7.) Post your headers with the explanations (whatever work you had for step 4) underneath the video.
8.) Send links to your blog entries to Mrs. Deraps at hderaps@mtbluersd.org
9.) You will need to give a short presentation of your blog post on Tuesday, and explain your songs idea of "romance" briefly, giving short explanations of your headers. We will then be discussing everyone's headers as a class, and deciding which parts of them are seen in a healthy or unhealthy relationship.

For an example blog post, see here: Blog Example