Let’s Get the Ball Rolling…

I love the great input folks have given about how to do something meaningful and enjoyable in our local community with the great books.

Here is my suggested plan, that can be further adjusted as we go forward…

The Idea:

We desire to become a community of adult learners who model for our children what we are seeking to cultivate in them as students at Christ Covenant School.  To that end, we are seeking with these forums to…

• Read the works our upper school students will be reading in their studies, focusing especially on the literature.
• Practice and enjoy the art of conversation.
• To sharpen our skills and increase our knowledge about the basic ideas of human experience.
• To share these great works with each other that each of us might love and appreciate them more.

The Means:

• We will choose a book and begin reading it prior to our first meeting (see below for first choice).
• We will agree upon in advance one or two questions that each of us will be seeking to answer as we read.
• We will come together to discuss the work and our thoughts on our questions.

The First Book:

• Romeo and Juliet, W. Shakespeare
• This book is read in our 8th grade.  I think its size and content are both manageable for us as a first work to tackle.
• Attached is a brief overview.
• I would recommend that we publish far and wide the call for all interested participants to read this work and come ready to discuss the following questions:

• • Do the main characters in this story truly love?
  • Compare and contrast the characters of Romeo and Juliet. How do they develop throughout the play? What makes them fall in love with one another?

Overview of the Play:

• Full title  ·  The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet
• Author  · William Shakespeare
• Genre  · Tragic drama
• Time and place written  · London, mid-1590s
• Date of first publication  · 1597 (in the First Quarto, which was likely an unauthorized incomplete edition); 1599 (in the Second Quarto, which was authorized)
• Protagonists  · Romeo; Juliet
• Antagonists  · The feuding Montagues and Capulets; Tybalt; the Prince and citizens of Verona; fate
• Setting – Renaissance (fourteenth or fifteenth century); Verona and Mantua (cities in northern Italy)