I realized when I was starting to read Romeo and Juliet with my freshmen, we were spending a lot of time at the very beginning of the play stopping and starting so I could explain some of the context. This doesn't cover EVERYTHING, but it lets me frontload SOME of the information, so they are more prepared when we start reading. This is absolutely not the only thing I use to introduce Shakespeare, but it can be very helpful to review the basics if your students already know a little bit about h