We often didn’t just get sent home with a copy of Romeo and Juliet and then get asked to write an essay.

We went through it, a bit at a time, in class. With a very good teacher. Not just helping with word and phrases, but digging in a little bit. And at the end we watched a performance of it.

I think that made it so much easier to appreciate, and it made it a ton easier to read and appreciate Julius Caesar or whichever ones we did next.

And like… that was 30+ years ago for me, but I feel like I see echoes of that stuff all the time.