Techniques for dummies

My presentation from the English Teachmeet

My presentation was a journey through my teaching of techniques. I discussed what I do to get students to explore language choices effectively. We have so many resources, yet we don’t have any clear step by step instructions of how to approach things and this is problematic if you are new to teaching English, or if you want to have a clear structure in your teaching. There is no single way to teach, yet it would be nice to hear how people approach things.

Our common approach to teaching techniques is often based on two approaches.  One: what students notice in a text. Two: asking leading questions highlighting key things.  There is also the teaching of a specific technique through writing but today I am mainly concerned with the analysis of techniques. Our questions usually sound like these:

•       Why did the writer use the word ‘++++++’?

•       How does the writer make the writing dramatic?

•       How are questions used effectively here?

•       How does the reader feel at the start and how does the writer create that feeling?

•       What effect does the use of emotive language have at the start of the text?

I have felt that the two approaches don’t always work well for me. They are two extremes. One structured and the other not. Occasionally, I might use both approaches, yet I have always felt underwhelmed with the results. In fact, I felt that my whole approach to analysis was limiting. Approach one was trying to build independence yet it was based on what I had taught students previously. Approach two was dependent on me leading and students explaining. Therefore, I needed to think how I could get students to explore without being too dependent on me.  I needed some steps and approaches that would stagger the progress from explain to exploring. We seem to flip at the moment between the two.

 

Independence – choices – exploring (A/B)

dependence – formula – explaining (C/D/E)
 

The secret I find to writing effectively about techniques is about doing three things at once: talk about what the writer has done; explain how the reader feels; and explain why the writer wants people to feel or think this way. Hopefully, some of the approaches below help to address some of these things. Each of these I have experimented with and I am still experimenting with them.  
  

Approach one:  creating sentences.

This worked really well as a starter as it allowed students to construct simple sentences that could be expanded at a later stage. It made students think and they produced some clever and insightful points. I usually get them to write 6 sentences as a starter or a plenary.  They then feedback their best ones. 

To extend it further, I have asked students to link two techniques together ( alliteration and 1^st person perspective) to show an understanding that techniques work in combination with each other.

Approach two:  offering them alternatives.

This I have blogged about before, but again it is a brilliant starter or plenary. It engages students quickly with its multiple choice approach. We are always asking students to say why something is used, which is like plucking something out of thin air, and rarely show them the possible alternatives. This approach gives students a clear alternative to say why the writer picked one rather than the other. I have used it with poems, plays and non-fiction texts. It gets to the heart of the choices and makes students think. The question, ‘Why did the writer use a simile here?’ becomes slightly more concrete for exploring when turned to, ‘Why did the writer use a simile instead of question here?’.  In their discussions they will relate ideas to the purpose and effect and structure without direct input from the teacher. They are simply exploring.

 

Approach three:  offering them precise alternatives.

A variation on a theme, but nonetheless it works well. Some teachers use draft versions of a text to explore choices, but this one worked really well. It removes jargon and technical terminology that bog some explanations down. Simply it focuses on the meanings of the words and how the word functions in the text. I had a group discussing endlessly the difference between look and glance. Harper Lee’s writing is quite simple, yet even with simple choices there are layers of meaning.

 

Approach four:  looking at the wider choices

Shakespeare is both easy and difficult to teach. This approach I have used before, but I am refining it here. Getting students to think wider as a writer is important. Here the students explore what were the big choices made for the scene and explore why those specific choices were made. Again, this is about making the implicit explicit. These are often the biggest choices made by the playwright, but they are neglected by the dominance of language features.  This is part of a bigger document which I will share later.

 

Approach five:  predicting the use of choice

This approach is my most ‘out-there’ one. The students are told the context of a scene. In this case, it was Othello killing Desdemona.  They have to explain why the writer would use the word ‘it’ in this situation before reading a single line of text. Students explore in detail why the choices were made. For me, this approach worked as it removed a lot of the barriers to understanding here – the complex language and numerous allusions to things students are not familiar with. Rather than decode a text, they were thinking like a writer. Why would you use the word ‘honour’ in this situation? Furthermore, it took out that annoying simplification of Shakespeare that sometimes happens. Why study Shakespeare if you are going to reduce it? The students were able to explore  the choices even before reading the scene. Then, in the reading of the scene an extra layer of analysis was added as they searched for the techniques or noticed what the writer actually did.

 

These are just some ideas and my exploration of teaching techniques is just an experiment with some positive results. I am going to take it further and apply it now to writing. For example:

Write a letter to the producers of X-Factor persuading them not to use the chairs again?

Opening:

rhetorical question vs emotive language vs fact

 

I am going to get students to discuss which approach is best when writing the letter. We will explore the choices at the same time that we write. Write like a reader and read like a writer.

Thanks for reading,

 @Xris32

 

Through a mirror darkly: How do you teach context?

Teaching is a bit like eating a Cabury’s Creme Egg. Each person has their own way of doing it. Some nibble one bit at a time. Some eat things all in one go. Some eat half and come back later. I think Twitter and blogging are very frustrating, as everyone has a perspective and not everybody can, and will, agree. A few people moan about how some people eat in crazy way; and a select few tut about how others are ‘traditional’ in their way of eating.

I get a little excited when Christmas finishes as from January onwards the creme eggs are on sale. Therefore, for months until Easter my wife and I taste / devour / eat / scoff / ravish the chocolate eggs. My wife slowly eats hers and I, contrastingly, eat mine in one go. We both enjoy the experience, but have different approaches. That’s what can be a little frustrating about teachers on blogs and Twitter. It is the asserting that their way is the right and the best way.  I don’t think for one minute I have nailed eating chocolate eggs (other chocolate eggs are available) or teaching; I just feel if I share my thoughts or ways of doing things I might learn from others.  I am happy to be wrong, but more than happy to question.   

So my question is today: How do you teach context? Each sliver of text we study is a telescope into the world that the writer was writing in. We learn things about life, culture, politics and other enlightening things.  A lot of these come from the book itself and you teach them as you go along. Why are people so mean to Curley’s Wife? Why does Crook’s sleep in his own room? But, occasionally, we need to go a little bit further to understand the text.  

The story we read in class is a pale imitation of the world students know. Some created worlds are close to their own world; others are strangely alien. Some things are obvious and some not.  The Depression reflects the Repression of today in ‘Of Mice and Men’.  I know: A good book doesn’t need explicit contextual information. The sign of a good book is its ability to discuss key aspects of human existence. They surpass the time they were written. They don’t need detailed explanation. But, alongside this might be some complex idea that was only relevant at the time. To fully understand ‘The Merchant of Venice’, you need to know the religious context of the time. To fully understand ‘Julius Caesar’, you need to know that Queen Elizabeth’s life was threatened by assassination plots on a regular basis. Some of these may have been from the Pope, who lived in Rome at the time – where Romans come from and where ‘Julius Caesar’ is set.  Learn the fact that there was a Jewish doctor who was accused of poisoning the Queen and you have a deep understanding of both plays.   

So, what do you do?

Which of the following do you use when teaching the context of a play, novel or poem?

[A]Dig out a sheet photocopied from a book.

[B] Give a lecture on what you brain knows about said context.

[C] Show students a picture, painting or piece of music and like a good food critic get students to infer what this tells us of the time by looking for hints of this and essence of that.

[D] Dust off a video that you found in the stock cupboard that features an Open University documentary that has the colour brown with aplomb.  

At the moment, I am preparing to teach ‘Othello’ for the first time and I have got to that awkward context question, again. I love history and I love referring to it in lessons; however, there comes a point when essays become information dumps. Teaching contextual information alongside a literary text has always been, for me, a tightrope act. Balance one way and all the students do is regurgitate facts about how William Shakespeare might have been gay, or Christopher Marlowe – or even both. Balance the other way and you get students forgetting that text is a product of its time and focusing on how William Shakespeare nicked his plot from Eastenders  and Coronation Street.  Sometimes, I have been successful. Others, I haven’t.

Adrian Beard’s ‘Texts in Context’ has been a great book for me teaching A-level, highlighting that there are different contexts.

Dramatic context

Social Context

Political Context

Gender Context

Religious Context

The problem I find with the concept of context is that there is so much of it. As teachers we have to whittle down what is relevant to the understanding of the story.  Does the colour of Queen Elizabeth’s dress really matter to the plot?

FACTS, FACTS, FACTS
At the start of texts, I produce a poster summarising key contextual points. For example:  

Porphyria’s Lover: Context

·   Victorians didn’t really talk about sex.

·   Women had no power.

·   Women couldn’t leave or divorce a man.

·   It was terrible if a woman had an affair. They would be shunned by society.

·   Victorians were worried about women and their desires.

·   People could only marry a person if they were of the same social class. The rich married the rich and the poor married the poor.

·   Victorians were interested in how the mind works.

·   Most people attended Church on a Sunday.

I give students a list of facts, statements or general opinions of the time. This is produced as a poster and kept in the classroom as a display. It then becomes an aide memoir to students. The repetition and generalisation of Victorians is important, I think, because it then sets up the difference between the student’s context and the context of when the story was written.  It makes for a great starter. How would you change the poster for modern readers?

During the teaching of the text, I will ask questions about the text and ask them to link to what they know about the context. Because these are generalisations, it allows students to form ideas much quicker than specific dates and details. I might at a later stage change or adapt the list, but it makes for a collective grounding of what we know. As it is there at the start, it becomes a part of the daily dialogue in lessons and students learn it better than the infamous context lesson.  The statements are the kind of things students say, so I then work to develop and improve the sophistication of these ideas.

Recently, on Twitter there has been the argument of facts versus skills. In this case, I think it is vital that students have those facts to develop their knowledge of the text. The skills of decoding and understanding of a play go hand-in-hand with the facts of the time. One doesn’t make much sense without the other.

Work out

I am spoon-feeding them, right? No so. After we have read a fair amount of that book, play or poem, I get students to do a bit of circuit training. I set up ten stations around the room; each one covering a different aspect. At each stage there is an article (dense text with no pictures) and two questions. For example:

 What do you think the King’s attitude towards Catholics was at the time the play was performed?

The play was written for the King to watch. Where do we see the King’s views reflected in the play?

Armed with a highlighter, the students visit each section and search for some golden nuggets of information and link them to the play. To spice things up, I might include a picture or extract from another play. However, the emphasis is sifting through the texts. Students have to dig and think for themselves. All the time the emphasis is on ‘relevance’: How is this piece of information relevant to my understanding of the text? They move at this stage from general opinions of the time to specific ideas.

Case Studies 

The great thing about the internet is that you are only three clicks away from a case study or an eye-witness account. Recently, I came across this article from the BBC:

Source:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18903391

It makes for an interesting point. From reading ‘Othello’, one would assume that seeing a black person in England was very rare. Reading this article would challenge that notion. But, it would also raise the issue of a multicultural England. The play shows us a multicultural society in its infancy. Although Othello is a minority, he is working in a different culture to his own. The simple questions at the end of reading a case study or extract would be:

Does this change our feelings or thoughts about the play?

Context can usually be boiled down to some bite-size facts that we can easily test with closed questions. However, presenting an idea through a case study, for me, is more effective. It is dealing with the ideas and themes rather than the what. How many times have I read an essay that starts with a date or a fact about context? Starting with an idea is so much more meaningful than a dull fact. The idea that ‘Othello’ reflects London with its population provides lots of food for thought. Was Shakespeare for a multicultural society? Was he promoting it?  

I find that my approach seems to work for me, because it doesn’t rely on the facts too much. The information is important, but it is the idea behind the fact that is more important. I have read endless essays that have told me that a student has researched the text very well, but without the connection to the writing and the understanding of the influence on the writing, the student will struggled to succeed.

I have shared with you what I do and I would love to know what you do.  To be honest, I am not that interested in how you eat your eggs though.

Thanks,

Xris32

Enid Blyton goes rapping with William Shakespeare

Now that I have exorcised my demons about ‘Romeo and Juliet’, I feel I can start talking about Shakespeare, and, in particular, teaching Shakespeare. Recently, I taught a little Shakespeare unit to a class of Year 7s and, for once, I decided to jazz it up – I mean rap it up.

Before I explain what I did, I need to explain how street I am. In fact, I am so street that council tidy me up every three weeks. I am so street that my stomach is one big speed hump. I am so street that all my clothes have double yellow lines on them. Actually, I am so far from anything being anything remotely street. This has been an influence in my teaching of anything related to rapping. I didn’t touch it with a barge pole.  

 

Personally, I feel that the ages between of 8 and 12 are crucial in the formation of any street cred or teen identity. Sadly, at that crucial time I was living in Cyprus, playing adventures in the ocean, while my peers in ‘sunny’ Wales were learning how to swear and how to perfect a teenage slouch in readiness for their teenage years. When I arrived back in the UK for the last few months of Year 6, I was like an Enid Blyton character on a day visit to the New York Bronx. It was like two worlds meeting. If only this bizarre juxtaposition of cultures was a fleeting thing. It wasn’t. Therefore, during my teenage years, while my friends were swearing their heads of, I was ‘golly-goshing’ and ‘gee-whizzing’. It was like I missed out the very important meeting where everyone learnt to swear. Sadly, I didn’t have an older brother to imitate and I was left to find my own way of being hip. While friends were experimenting with cider and twenty twenty, I was enjoying lashings of ginger beer, hoping said friends would participate in a midnight feast and solve mysteries.

 

Then came music. The 90s were a great and bad time for music. During my growing up, I liked dance music and indie music. And, I didn’t feel there was room for rap music. It always felt that it wasn’t for me. I had failed epically with trying to be ‘cool’ with swearing, so I was not going to try to be ‘cool’ with music. As my CD collection can confirm, I didn’t have that much luck with the music either. You will find Babylon Zoo. Proof, that just listening to music in the 90s doesn’t automatically define taste.

 

Fast forward to today. I have grown up and changed from an Enid Blyton character and matured into an Agatha Christie character – just without the murder. I am quite reserved and emotionally detached. Generally, I talk like a 1930’s radio announcer and hate public displays of affection. Furthermore, my welsh roots are only heard when I mention the words coat, jacket and, oddly, the word: here. All this makes for a great combination. I feel like Boris Johnson if I approach anything remotely cool, with a tiny hint of Tom Jones.

 

For years, I have heard teachers praise the use of rap in the classroom. I have sat in teachmeets where the enthusiasm has bubbled and oozed out of a teacher as they explained how beneficial it is; I have just sat there with my stiff upper lip, having flashbacks of my childhood.  I hid in the sand until a problem arose: I found a brilliant video to introduce Shakespeare as a rap. I procrastinated longer than Hamlet on this one. Do I use it and make a complete fool of myself? Do I use it as a fun way to introduce Shakespeare that sticks in the students’ minds? Or, do I get them to complete a worksheet? 

 

I did it. I rapped with the class. And, it wasn’t that embarrassing...much. We learnt the rap from the video and sung it with actions. I learnt something along the way that I don’t think I had really thought about it. The Year 7s were not the best rappers or experts on rapping I had ever seen. They were a bit like me. They thought it was ‘cool’, but they had this self-awareness that they were not skilled rappers; we liked the idea of rapping but we really didn’t have the skills to do it. I was awkward; they were awkward. It was a fun combination.  

 

Then, we explored the playful nature of rap. We took the famous ‘To be or not to be’ speech and turned that into a rap. We experimented with how to say the words and where to place emphasis, volume or even actions. This is a before and after.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;

 

To be,

or not to be: 

that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings 

and arrows 

of outrageous 

fortune,

Or to take arms 

against a sea 

of troubles,

And by opposing end them? 

To die: 

to sleep;

No more; 

and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache 

and the thousand 

natural shocks

That flesh is heir to, 

'tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish'd. 

To die, 

to sleep;

To sleep: 

perchance to dream: 

ay, there's the rub;

 

This is just a variation of performance poetry, I know. However, I have found that performance poetry can lack a bit of focus. It can be good, but more than often it isn’t. This way of rapping bits from the text meant that thought was place on how an individual should read it and not a group - often performance poetry leads to a poem being shredded and individual lines shared out by the group. Yes, I know that they ignored and followed the punctuation, but mainly they made it ‘real’. Like a real piece of speech. How would Hamlet rap this? We found that by the playing around with the lines on the page we discovered the constant listing, and the constant use of verbs. Here a thunk to think about: Who is the best Shakespeare rapper? Hamlet? Othello? Lear? Romeo? 

The great thing about this method was that we were looking at the musicality of the writing. Looking at how the beats work. Where there should be pauses? Where things should speed up? For the year 7s, it was fun and different. But for me, it was getting students to engage with Shakespeare’s language without breaking it line by line and explaining what every word or phrase means. It was listening to how the words sound and how it should be read. I could probably write an essay about some of the choices they made, as it added to the overall meaning of the text. Rapping Shakespeare isn’t about a crazy gimmick to appeal to students; it is about listening to how the lines should be read. How many times have we wanted John to channel the spirit of Kenneth Branagh when reading a brilliant line? Sadly, often it has meant that he has only channelled the spirit of the speaking clock instead.  I have heard famous lines read with a deadpan expression that is comical. Murder read like a shopping list. Declarations of love read like a train station announcement.   

Before people think I have gone mad and that I am planning to have every lesson about Shakespeare using a Dido song with another student rapping over the top of it, I am not. Instead, I am going to work on the performance of the text first, sometimes. I will get them to work out how it should be read and look for where the emphasis is. I have already got a lesson planned, where my Year 10s are going to take some of Othello’s speeches and try to read them out as a rap.

 

OTHELLO

It is the cause,
it is the cause,
my soul,--
Let me not name it to
you,
you chaste
stars!--
It is the cause.
Yet I'll not shed her
blood;

 

Blank verse and prose floats into out teaching when looking at the text, but I feel that this 'rapping with Shakespeare' first approach could lead to the discussion in a natural way.

We always argue that plays should be acted out in lessons, but for an awkward teenager who worries about their voice, appearance and position in the class, it isn’t always the best thing. Because rap has this slightly cool air about it, it means that just by making it rap rather than drama, there is a stronger appeal.

If only I could go back in time to Wales in 1990s with my newfound rapping ability. Who knows I could have been that street to be in ‘The Streets’? Then again, I haven’t perfected the swearing yet. Golly gosh, is that the time – must dash!

Thanks for reading,

Xris32 

Oh my God. They killed Romeo!

I hope you haven’t played that party game of ‘I have never’. The rules are pretty simple: People take it in turns to complete the phrase ‘I have never…’ and if you have, you have a drink, or you have to complete a forfeit. I will go first: I have never taught ‘Romeo and Juliet’ to students. This is where you take a drink now, because I bet the majority of people reading this have, at some time, taught the play. I bet there are schools across the land that only teach ‘Romeo and Juliet’ at GCSE. I have certainly worked in schools where 90% of English teachers teach ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and the rest do something else by William Shakespeare.  

I am one of those 10% of teachers that teaches anything but ‘Romeo and Juliet’. Over the years, I have taught ‘The Merchant of Venice’, ‘Julius Caesar’, ‘Macbeth’, ‘Much Ado About Nothing’, ‘King Lear’, ‘Hamlet’, ‘Henry V’ and ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ to a variety of students. Even my university days included more of the Bard’s work such as ‘Twelfth Night’, ‘As You Like It’, ‘A Winter’s Tale’, ‘King John’, ‘Henry IV Part 1’, and ‘Henry IV Part 2’. You can see I like variety.  In fact, this week I have been studying another play to teach: Othello. I tend to rotate plays every two years to: keep me on my toes; and keep things fresh and new.

Looking at the recent changes in the curriculum, you can see an attempt to remedy this. We now have to study more Shakespeare plays and more than one at GCSE. Why? Possibly because the same one is done time and time again. There exists a problem that has been highlighted before: We tend to teach the same texts again and again at GCSE. Let’s call them the ‘trinity’ of English departments. An Inspector Calls. Of Mice and Men. Romeo and Juliet. I bet there are people that teach these plays year on year and never change them. The beauty of these texts is that they are so bloody good. However, teaching them year on year breeds over familiarity with them. Funnily, a Year 7 brought a copy ‘Of Mice and Men’ to a reading lesson and said that they were told to read it by an older sibling. Also, I have heard of some schools teaching ‘Of Mice and Men’ in Year 8 and repeating it in Years 9, 10 and 11 so, hopefully, something sticks.

Am I a better teacher for teaching the same text several years in a row? Or, is it a safer approach to teaching? I know it works, so I will stick to doing it. Why change it if it works well already? We talk about students focusing on content rather than the skills, when we do it already. We see teaching the play / novel as being content driven rather than skills driven. I have these resources and I must use them. Texts are so good because you can squeeze years of teaching out of a single novel or play.  But, does this over reliance on one text mean that we neglect the skills of a new reader to a text? Or, does it mean that we can hone some skills better?  

Personally, my teaching several Shakespeare plays has helped me considerably in my teaching. I understand his style and techniques better, because I can spot patterns between plays. I understand the mechanics of his plotting better, because I see similar devices used in different ways in his other plays. I understand his themes better, because I have seen them repeated and echoed in other plays. I am better, in my opinion, because I have read, acted and studied a range of his texts. Therefore, I now tend to have a ‘give-it-a-go approach’ to things now. I have never taught ‘Othello’, but I am enjoying preparing and planning for it. Already, I can see connections between ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ and ‘Othello’. Firstly, there’s the plotting of Don John and Iago. Then, there’s the use of imagery relating to ‘Heaven and Hell’. Finally, there is the use of Hero and Desdemona: A character presented through other people’s opinions of her. They both don’t save a single kitten, yet they are presented as pure as snow. I am starting to see that ‘Othello’ is a grown-up version of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and a less comedic version of ‘Much Ado About Nothing’. Yes, I know Shakespeare didn’t come up with the story, but they have a lot of similarities in the ways that they are written.

My insistence of doing different texts has helped me considerably. I feel that I can comfortably handle a new Shakespeare play without fear and worry. Yes, it does take time, but I feel more comfortable with talking about Shakespeare and his writing and his style as I have a breadth of knowledge to work from, rather than the same play. There are so many resources for ‘Romeo and Juliet’ that you don’t need to create anything really. Pick another play and you can be more inventive and creative.

So, what’s my beef with ‘Romeo and Juliet’? When I tell students that we are not going to study the play, I get a few groans and the jealousy starts about how the other groups are watching the dead good film by Baz Luhrmann. There is one reason I don’t go for it: They want to watch it.  This is my same reasoning with books like ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Hunger Games’. Why introduce these to students when they are likely to read them independently? Surely, it is better to introduce them to something new and different. I have saved somewhere a letter from a parent explaining how amazed she was that her son knew a lot about ‘Julius Caesar’. I’d rather be the key that opens doors to literature, than the ticket tout for the latest film.

Another reason: My childhood. Yes, you may call Freud. I had a fabulous English teacher at school, Mr Bic, and he taught me the play. However, even he couldn’t make me connect with the play. In fact, all I can recall is some video with some naked bums in it and me slowly ploughing through the text, wandering what we will do next. I never really connected with it, because I wasn’t part of a warring family; and, I just felt that Romeo and Juliet’s suicides were misguided. Maybe, I am heartless, but I just don’t buy the fact that these characters quickly go from 'stranger' to 'lover' and then to not wanting to exist without the other one. Furthermore, the potion. A potion that mimics death. I am sorry, but I would use everything at hand to see if my loved one was really dead. A mirror. Check her pulse. Pinch her. Bucket of cold water. Plus, what about rigor mortis?

But, the main reason is that I never felt it was a teen play. It does feature some teenagers in it, but I feel that it is an adult’s view of teenagers and how teenagers behave strangely. They fight. They argue. They disobey. They even do the deed. Then, they do a stupid thing like kill themselves. ‘Hamlet’ for me has always been the play for teenagers. A person that questions the world as it is. A person that searches for their position in the world. A person that isn’t happy. A person that has mood swings. A person that doesn’t like what his parents are telling him. I suppose I was more Hamlet than Romeo.  

In September, I will be selling (teaching) ‘Othello’ to my class. First, I will start with the plot of ‘Romeo and Juliet’. Then, I will ask them: How would you make a sequel of the story? How could you improve on the story? How could you reimagine the story? Then I will tell them that ‘Othello’ is like ‘Romeo and Juliet’ but with more sex, more violence, more realism, more plot twists and a darker tone.

Why the title? It is a reference to ‘South Park. In every episode, the character Kenny is killed. This is repeated every episode.
 

http://southpark.wikia.com/wiki/File:KennyMcCormick.png

Oh my God. They killed Romeo!

Oh my God. They killed Juliet!

Oh my God. They killed Curley’s wife!

Oh my God. They killed Lennie!

Oh my God. They killed Eva Smith!

Oh my God. They killed Daisy Renton!

Go on pick another play by William Shakespeare. I dare you to.

Thanks for reading,
Xris

 

P.S. I will learn to love ‘Romeo and Juliet’ as I will be helping to direct it next year.