Starting Friday of last week, students in Mr. Richard Lawson’s, first, third and fifth English 9 Honors classes had to recite lines from William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” in front of their classmates.

“Though it seemed like a lot of work, I wasn’t really nervous about the speech. In eighth grade I had to do a five-minute speech on Michael Jordan’s ‘Hall of Fame’ speech and since that went really well, I wasn’t really that concerned,” Spero Vrehas (9) said.

The students had to memorize 20 to 25 lines from a scene in the play, and go up to the front of the class to say their lines for all to hear. The students also had to bring in a prop to use throughout the presentation.

“To memorize all the lines, I kept going over a few at a time, and then I would say the whole thing a few times. Once I was done with that, I went on to learn a new line,” Makayla Sullivan (9) said.

The grading scale for the presentation depended on both the presentation as well as the prop the students decided to bring in. The presentation itself was worth from 0-90 points, and the prop was worth up to ten points, coming in for a total of 100 points.

“I ended up getting a 99 on the project,” Vrehas said. “I missed the one line I had gone over and over again the night before, and although I was frustrated that I had missed it, I’m still glad I got such a good grade.”

For Andrew Ackerman (9), his presentation did not go as well as he would have liked it to.

“I had forgotten about the project until the night before, and because of that, I freaked out and began to memorize all the lines I could. I ended up using notecards and I know that my grade probably suffered because of that,” Ackerman said.

As the presentations draw to a close, several students feel as if the project will help them in the near future.

“I definitely feel better about presenting,” Sullivan said, “and since I feel that this project was so easy, I feel that it will definitely help me overcome my nervousness in the future.”