KENNEDY THEATRE PAGE TO STAGE PROGRAM

Macbeth Lesson Plans

For Grades 9-12

 Created by Macbeth dramaturg Marie Charlson

Educational programming supported by the Hawai`i Council for the Humanities and the UH Mānoa Fund.
In association with 2008 Kennedy Theatre production of Macbeth (Nov. 14-23), directed by Paul T. Mitri.

See www.hawaii.edu/theatre/stage/pagetostage for educational events listing.
For more information, contact pagestage@gmail.com

ORAL PRESENTATION OF RESEARCH

Applicable Standards:  LA 11.1.2, LA 11.6.1, LA 12.1.2, LA 12.6.1

Learning Outcome:  Students will discover Shakespeare’s times and apply what they have learned to an understanding of Macbeth

Plan: Divide the class into equal groups.  Provide the students with a list of possible topics to research that relate to the life and times of Shakespeare. 

  • Potential subjects include:

  • Shakespeare’s life story

  •  the Shakespeare identity debate

  •  the court of Queen Elizabeth

  •  daily life of the people in London

  •  theatre life and business in the Elizabethan Age

  •  transition of power from Queen Elizabeth to King James

  •  the court of King James

  •  persecution of Catholics under Queen Elizabeth

  • Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson

  •  witches and other superstitions in the Renaissance

Have each group pick a different topic to research and present to the class in two or three weeks’ time. Students should gather pertinent information and develop a creative presentation with the assistance of a visual aid.  These aids could range from a model of the Globe theatre to a collage of portraits of famous personages of the age.  All members of the group should have equal roles in the presentation, which should last about ten minutes.  Each group will give their report with the help of their visual aid.  After each presentation, the class should ask questions of the group about their topic.

 

WRITING ACTIVITIES

Analytical Writing: Essay

Applicable Standards:  LA 11.2.1, LA 11.4.1, LA 12.4.1, FA 9-12.3.5

Learning Outcome:  Students can identify literary elements Macbeth and compare to a specific, staged interpretation of the play.

Plan: 

1. Review the literary elements found within the script of Macbeth:

  •  Plot

  • Setting

  • Character

  • Style/Form

Discuss what the lines in the script reveal about each of these elements.  What type of woman is Lady Macbeth?  Where is the setting based on the names of the characters and locations?  How does the verse structure and vocabulary date the play?  Make detailed lists for each element, citing in the script where the information is conveyed. 

2. Take the students to see the Kennedy Theatre production of Macbeth (Nov. 14-23) OR one of the public library presentations OR the Open Rehearsal of scenes on 10/26.  Immediately after, the students should list all the moments and production choices that deviated from the script and the choices that stayed true.  What was cut or ignored?  Was the gender of any particular character changed?  Did the action take place in medieval Scotland? 

3.  With lists on hand, have the students write a paper comparing and contrasting the script and the performance.  Look at the surface differences such as change of setting and switch of character gender, but also focus on how actors might have altered the quality of their characters with their artistic choices.  Was Macbeth more or less ambitious than he seemed in just a reading of the script? 

Option: Students might conclude the lesson with their own vision of how the play should be staged.

 

Creative Writing: Modern Scene from Macbeth

Applicable Standards:  LA 11.4.1, LA 11.6.1, LA 12.4.1, LA 12.6.1, FA 9-12.3.1, FA 9-12.3.7

Learning Outcome:  Students can show understanding of the play by writing a new version of a scene using modern language.  Setting can be any other time or place in world history.

Divide the class into groups of four or five.  Have each group choose a different scene from Macbeth to rewrite and set in a new location   Once each group has picked a scene, they should paraphrase each speech into modern English to ensure they understand the action in the scene.  The groups should then brainstorm moments in history or in modern life to which their scene might parallel or relate.  An example would be take act 1scene 3 and recast the witches as nurses in a mental hospital at which Macbeth and Banquo are patients.  Once the group has picked their favorite new setting, they should begin writing their own scene, updating and altering the language to suit their needs while keeping the story line and meaning of the dialogue the same. 

Option: If there is time to rehearse, the groups should perform the scenes in front of the class, perhaps with script in hand.  Each group should turn in the original paraphrasing as well as a copy of the final script they will perform.  See if the class can guess the original scene after each performance. 

 

ACTING/LITERARY ANALYSIS

Text Analysis: Iambic Pentameter

Applicable Standards:  LA 11.6.1, LA 11.6.5, LA 12.6.1, LA 12.6.4, FA 9-12.3.7

Objective:  To teach the students about iambic pentameter (blank verse) and prose and communicating in different styles.

1. Define iambic pentameter and explain how to mark the stressed and unstressed syllables.  Show how to break a line down into feet and mark the stresses of the syllables using scansion. Please refer to the VAN TASSEL book listed under the teacher resources at the end of this listing for examples of scansion and precise definitions.  Define and demonstrate with examples such aspects as:

  • caesura

  • feminine ending

  • inversion

  • elision

  • rhymed couplets

Have the class notice that the stressed syllables tend to fall on the most important and colorful words in the line while the pronouns and modifiers tend to be in unstressed positions.  Emphasizing this phenomenon helps clarify the meaning of the line because the accents are on the most important information

See also Web English Teacher’s "Shakespearean Sonnets” website at www.webenglishteacher.com/shakesonnets.html for additional activity suggestions, such as having students write their own sonnets.

2. Assign students different passages from Macbeth and have them mark their lines using scansion.  Also have them define all new words and write modern versions of their lines to show they understand what they are saying.  They should have time to practice saying the lines with the emphasis as they marked it to make sure that it assists in communicating the meaning of the dialogue. 

3. When the students are comfortable with the way they say their lines, have them perform the passage for the class.  Engage in an active discussion after each scene.  Was the scene easy to understand?  Did the students use the iambic pentameter to effectively deliver the lines?

 
ACTING

Movement: Pantomime

Applicable Standards:  LA 11.6.1, LA 12.6.1, FA 9-12.3.1, FA 9-12.3.7

Learning Outcomes: Students can use blocking and movement to explore the actions and background of a script.

            As a class, read Lady Macbeth’s monologue in Act III scene ii lines 1 – 15, in which she describes Macbeth’s movements about the castle based on the sounds she hears.  Break the class up into equal groups and instruct them to write their own scenario of the murder based on the reading.  No spoken words are needed because the murder was done silently, but each group should write a paragraph describing the action of their scene.  At the end of class, each group should perform their own silent scene of the murder.  Let the class discuss when the sounds described by Lady Macbeth happened in the scene.

 

Teacher Resources:

Compiled by Marie Charlson and William C. Carroll

Books:

Adelman, Janet.  Suffocating Mothers: Fantasies of Maternal Origin in Shakespeare’s Plays, Hamlet to The Tempest.   New York: Routledge, 1992. Chapter 6 discusses the construction of masculine identity in Macbeth as an escape from all women.

Greenblatt, Steven.  Will of the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare.  New York:

Norton, 2004.

Huggett, Richard.  The Curse of Macbeth. London: Picton Publishing, 1981.

Macbeth. Norton Critical Edition. Edited by Robert S. Miola.  New York: W.W. Norton, 2004. Selections from many useful essays on the play.

Macbeth: Texts and Context.  Ed. William C. Carroll.  Boston: Bedford St. Martin’s Press, 1999.

Macbeth. Shakespeare in Performance series. By Bernice W. Kliman. 2nd edition. New York: Palgrave, 2004. A history of productions of the play.

Peter Stallybrass. "Macbeth and Witchcraft." Focus on Macbeth. Ed. John Russell Brown. London: Routlege & Kegan Paul, 1982.

Leggatt, Alexander, ed. William Shakespeare's Macbeth: A Sourcebook.   New York: Routledge, 2006. Helpful historical information and contemporary essays.

Wills, Garry.  Witches and Jesuits: Shakespeare's Macbeth. By Garry Wills. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Readable treatment of witches, gunpowder plot, and local history.

Scott, Reginald.  Discovery of Witchcraft.  Dover modern edition, 1989.

Shamas, Laura.  We Three: The Mythology of Shakespeare’s Weird Sisters.  New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2007.

Van Tassel, Wesley.  Clues to Acting Shakespeare.  New York: Allworth Press, 2006. 

Electronic Resources:

www.folger.edu/template.cfm?cid=2591 (Teacher resources and study guide.)

http://shakespeare.mit.edu   (Online collection of Shakespeare’s works.)
 http://www.webenglishteacher.com/macbeth.html
http://shakespeare.palomar.edu/educational.htm    (Resources for students and teachers)
shakespeare.about.com/od/studentresources/a/macbethguide.htm   (General information on the play’s plot and characters.)

www.theatrehistory.com/british/macbeth001.html  (historical sources of Macbeth)

Special Thanks to:

Chris Windnagle, Valerie Wayne, William C. Carroll, and Gwendolyn Arbaugh for their contributions.