1. What's the play all about? A student wrote, "' Here's much to do with hate, but more with love,' is really what the play is about. It's the most important line of all." From what you know about the play so far, so you agree with this view? If yes, say why (with support from the text)? If not, pick your own line, and explain why it's the vital clue?

2. Take a closer look at Romeo's language. Note the opposites he uses:-

Love - hate
Heavy - lightness
Serious - vanity
Misshapen chaos - well-seeming forms

It was fashionable in the love poetry of Shakespeare's time to put together such contradictions, known as oxymorons. But as we know, fashion often reveals the deeper currents of meaning in a culture.

Find more of these opposites in Romeo's language. What is this impact of his language on our view/understanding of the play. Are we supposed to laugh? To think? Work out your own response to Romeo's language

3. What was Romeo's dream? (lines 49; 106 - 113). No one really knows what Romeo dreams, but looking at the lines at the end of scene 4, what do you think the dream might have been? Contrast Romeo's and Mercutio's views of dreams and their role in human affairs.

4. Develop "The Life of an Action" (Writing, pp. 55 - 56) for all of Act I. Draw this out in your journal, or on a larger sheet of paper. We shall use this in class - do not leave it in your dorm room, in the car, at your best friend's house or anywhere else inaccessible!

(questions 1 & 3 above are adapted from Rex Gibson's writing prompts in the New Cambridge edition of Romeo and Juliet)