The first time I actually read Romeo and Juliet was in the 9th grade. I remember mostly speeding through it, we all had the versions of the play where the translation is on one page and the original is directly across. So we flew through it because my teacher wanted to get to A Midsummer Night's Dream because she had more extensive plans for that play. We read it out loud in groups, choosing our own roles and acting it out, as comedies should. It was funny and fun, and afterwords we watched the movie and were encouraged to translate our own versions, which we also shared and which also turned out to be extensively hilarious.
Back on point, I never liked Romeo and Juliet. I remember thinking it was a sappy story as well as unrealistic. I feel Shakespeare intended it to be ironic and satirical, but instead it was taken quite seriously and tragically. I never want to teach this story, except maybe only to clear up the common confusions, discuss the media and cultural references and modern influences behind it, as well as discuss tropes and how and where students see this play in modern plays, movies, TV, etc.
I feel there are much more unappreciated Shakespeare plays that can be more effective and less overdone in the classroom. Most every single student will know the premise of Romeo and Juliet before you teach it, and it might be more exciting to show students that Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet are not the only plays Shakespeare wrote. In fact, many of his plays I had not even heard of until college. I never knew about King Lear, Othello, and All's Well That Ends Well. These are valuable pieces of literature that I feel do not get as much light as they deserve, and, seeing as how Romeo and Juliet is already a commonly known, referenced, and cliched piece by the time students get to your secondary classroom, there is much merit in opening the door to other branches of Shakespeare that are equally valuable.
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