This purpose of the study was to determine the effects of teachers using the Question Exploration Routine (QER) in regularly scheduled secondary-level English Language Arts classes to help students answer questions about the development and use of main ideas in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet." Questions were posed in both multiple-choice and written formats. On average, students representing diverse groups who received instruction with the QER correctly answered a significantly higher percentage of total questions than students receiving traditional lecture-discussion instruction (effect sizes were very large). Results are reported for total scores, subscores of multiple-choice and written responses, and for responses of subgroups of students. Students' mean satisfaction and confidence responses are reported.