Romeo and Juliet (Enhanced Edition)
Excellent side-by-side dramatization and text bring the Bard to life
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Romeo and Juliet (Enhanced Edition)
Pros: Professional Shakespearean actors do an impressive job of bringing understanding to students' reading.
Cons: The Tap to Translate feature fails to translate quite a bit of the Shakespearean language into modern English.
Bottom Line: High-quality production and seamless multimedia integration allow students to read and watch simultaneously, boosting engagement and learning potential.
WordPlay Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (Enhanced Edition) includes the complete text of Shakespeare's play and could be used as the primary text in 1-to-1 or BYOD classrooms where students have a device equipped with iBooks. Students can read and view individually, at their own pace. However, if your classroom has more limited device access, you could also show parts of the play -- selected scenes or even individual pages -- to your whole class so they can hear the words, demonstrating the emotion and meaning. If working individually, have students annotate the text as they read and then share notes and passages with others from within the app. You could even assign different students specific passages to read and respond to. Throughout, you'll find myriad opportunities to make students' reading a social, collaborative endeavor.
Editor's Note: This app is no longer available.
Romeo and Juliet (Enhanced Edition) is an iBook, accessible through Apple's App Store or from within the iBooks storefront. As such, it combines features specific to iBooks (like the in-app dictionary) with features commonly found in other digital adaptations of Shakespeare's plays. Students can read the full text of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, highlighting and annotating as they read. They can look up unfamiliar words using the iBooks dictionary (or Tap to Tranlate) to see the Shakespearean language translated into modern English, side-by-side.
The most significant enhancement, though, are the videos of professional Shakespearean actors presenting the entire play, page by page. Students can read the text and tap Play whenever they want to view the video. It automatically pauses at the end of the page, picking back up on the next page when students hit Play again. Each scene begins with a summary and a list of characters.
This sleek adaption is simply beautiful. The players act out each scene with minimal (usually no) props against a white background, which keeps students' attention on the language as much as possible. The talent is top-notch, and the book itself is easy to navigate; jumping to certain scenes via the table of contents, bookmarking specific pages, or searching by word or phrase is a cinch.
The Tap to Translate function is handy but doesn't accurately translate as much as some students may want or need. Also, keep in mind that there's no analysis included in the book, something found in most of the other digital adaptations available. Despite these minor flaws, Romeo and Juliet (Enhanced Edition) is an impressive representation of Shakespeare's work that preserves the Bard's language while also making it highly accessible for modern students.
Learning Rating
Community Rating
A great Shakespearean tool for all students
While viewing, it is possible to click on individual word and phrases to have them defined into a more modern English. There are additional click points that show language use and meaning, history, or thematic information. It can be viewed individually, or by the whole class. I believe that this product is well worth the price, if in fact you will be teaching Shakespeare every year.
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