Romeo and Rosaline, the untold story

My students think Rosaline, the unrequited love interest of Romeo, in Shakespeare's classic is Hispanic; therefore, my latin female students are quite offended that she and Romeo do not fall in love with one another.

Today in class, a girl asked, "What does the white girl have that Rosaline doesn't?"

I replied, "Rosaline is not Hispanic. The story takes place in Verona. Everyone's Italian."

The girl thought for a moment before muttering, "Well, what does the white girl have that the Italian girl doesn't?"

Sigh.

"Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?"

My students and I just started reading Romeo and Juliet. In the first scene of the first act, a servant of Capulet insults a servant of Montague by biting his thumb at him. I explain to my students that biting one's thumb at another person is just as insulting as flipping someone your middle finger. To further explain this concept, I share some hand gestures and their different cultural interpretations from around the world. For example, I tell them that a thumbs up (an American sign meaning "A-OK" or "good job") means "up yours" in some areas of South America. Now whenver they feel frustrated, my students bite their thumbs at one another and give each other the thumbs up. Ain't Shakespeare fun?