Lesson Overview 

Preparation

The most important preparation is to give the students enough information, background, and confidence to get up there on stage and perform for their peers.  I don't invite or allow other classes to watch us - though I do send a letter to parents inviting them to come see their child perform.  I also allow students to invite their friends.  The most important preparation and requirements for today can be found in the handout the students received when they signed up for scenes.  I've included that handout below.  

The other important thing to do way in advance is to sign up for your theater or performance space or whereever you will put the scenes on.  There were a few years that I was forced to put the scenes on in my classroom - and while it is still pretty great - it is not the same and it doesn't reward the incredible hard work and preparation that the students have put into this activity.   It should be done somewhere special and the students should be signed out for the entire (or about) the entire day.   I get to the theater about an hour early to make sure all the stage and house lights are on.  The students will be required to sit in the front center of the theater.  It's hard enough to keep track of 120 students without them being scattered.  Besides - most of the time we have no microphones - and you need to be close to hear the students.  One of the things that I've told the students is that when they practice they need to stand far away and see if they can still hear each other.  No matter how clever you are with your scene - if you can't be heard, it gets lost.  I've included the handouts they were given the day they picked scenes, below.

Macbeth Day

I found it more than necessary to ask one (and sometimes) two students to be my assistant on the actual day.  There is just so much that needs to be kept track of - that it is great to have someone helping you keep everything in order and sane.  By this point in the school year, I know the students that have great organizational skills, so I will ask them a few days in advance.  It is a big ask.  While the other students are sitting with their friends - most of this student's time will be spent in the front row with you - helping the show run smoothly.  I always make sure they know how much they are appreciated and of course in their reccomendation letter for college (usually the next year) it's a great thing to talk about.

As the students are coming into the the theater, the first thing I do is to tell them to fill out their part of the evaluation form - see below for the form (with their names period, etc.).  I then have the assistant collect them and put them in order by period.  I will ask if there are any groups that want to go first (it's great to get it done - and then to be able to relax and watch the other groups - or sometimes a group member will be late or have to leave early).

I usually then make an introductory speech - welcoming the students, the parents, etc.  I give the students one period to practice one last time and to make all of their final preparations.  I ask for students to pass out the programs that I've made (also found below) and we then begin the scenes the next period.

The Scenes

The students perform their scenes, starting after that first period they are given to get ready.  I ask them if anyone wants to go first (within that period) and my assistant would put them in order (based on the group's preference) and hand them to me after I had given the last group their grade.

Other Activities

Because the students are usually signed out for all but the last period of the day - you want to make sure that there are always fun, related activities for those periods that the students are not performing.  For my activities, I usually chose three or four.  Most of these came directly from the Folger's Shakespeare Set Free.   For those activities you will have to directly to the Shakespeare Set Free books - Macbeth section.

Activity 1 - Shakespeare Sonnet Contest

This activity was always given right before lunch - and completed during lunch - it's such a great activity to bring the students together as they eat.  Since they can sit with whomever when they eat - they bond with other classes - and just have a darn fun time doing it.  This is heavily adapted from what I learned at the Folger Teaching Shakespeare Institute.  I cannot find (yet!) the original source but have included by handout below.    The students are asked to shout out a 1)  SINGLE SYLLABLE Color - write down the loudest choice.  2) Single Syllable Animal - write down the loudest.  3) single syllable emotion - write down the loudest.  Ok - now you have your starting point.  What appears on the handout (below) as numbers 1, 2, and 3.

The handout has the rest of the directions - including what a sonnet is and some general advice.  The handout mentions winners - and extra credit - but I always gave 100 points EC to everyone!  

When the students are done with lunch (we always arrange way in advance to take over one of the lunchrooms - and I frequently would walk over there from the theater to see how they were doing and to spur their sonnet writing on) they line up to read their group's entry in the sonnet contest.  They are all funny - we are all winners.

Activity 2  - Bombast (a chance for the students to humble me)

This activity was written by Rex Gibson and comes from Discovering Shakespeare's Language.  This is an AMAZING spiral bound book with 150 activities - worksheets that are ready to be copied and used.  It is sadly no longer in print (a crime!) but can be acquired used on Amazon for a song.  A Bombast (for those that don't know) is a hyperbolic exaggeration using "boastful or ranting language."  The worksheet gives two examples - the first from A Midsummer Night's Dream: "The Raging rocks / And shivering shocks..." and a second from Hamlet - wherein Hamlet boasts how much he loved Ophelia.  I usually do the first one myself - and get two students up - in a short contest - for the second.  The audience and I push them to go Way, Way, over the top in their boasts and it always ends in laughter and applause.

Next, I tell them that they are now to make their own bombast.  It must use the kind of over the top language and they are to be imaginative and over-the-top as possible, without being insulting or hurtful.  The topic is me - their teacher.  The premise is they overhear - in the hallway - a student complaining to another student about their English teacher - and specifically how hard they are.  Their bombast is a reply to that student - and it must begin with: "So you think YOU have a hard English teacher, have you ever..."  The rest is up to them.

I had a very strong reputation as the hardest teacher at our school (unfairly I must say - not because I gave more homework - but because I checked to see if they did it).  The temptation for the students must be high here to be mean, to be cruel - to give retribution.  However, in 20 years of doing this - I never saw it.  What I did see was a lot of good-natured humor and ribbing and an acknowledgement that the course was a lot of work - but work with rewards.

In any case, the students do their bombasts - one at a time - standing - loudly and to much laughter and applause.  Ie, "So you think YOU have a hard English teacher - have you ever had to memoroize Shakespeare and put on a Spongebob Squarepants outfit in front of  your friends."  etc. etc. etc.

When they are done ribbing me and my class - I do the only thing possible.  I turn it around  and bombastically praise them and tell them simultaneously how much I appreciate them.  It is always a variation on the same theme - it goes something like this: 

So - YOU think that YOU have a great class? 
Have you ever had a class that you knew you could depend on no matter what?
A class that cared more about what they learned than the grade they got?
A class that made you get up at 3:30 in the moring to write a meaningful lesson when you are sick - drive it to school - and then drive back home again - just so they won't fall behind?
A class made sad and terrible things this week so much easier with their love, hard work and devotion?
I have had such a class - this one - and I'm proud to call them mine.

I wrote that particular iteration the week my mother passed and my students left me a beautiful note on the front board.  For that full story  you can go here.

Activity 3  - Shakespearean Insults

Again, from Rex Gibson's wonderful book (but you can find tons of Shakespeare Insult handouts online).  The handout has three column of insults from Shakespeare's works - I line the students up into different rows.  For me this usually meant two huge rows on stage (facing each other) and two sets of smaller ones in the seats (also facing each other).  I tell the students to line up so they all a have a partner in the row across from them - and before they move or say anything - they need to pick an insult from each of the three columns.  The rows facing each other should be about 12 feet from each other.  I announce: "On the count of three the people in  first row are to say their first insult - then take a giant step forward - say their second (the row facing them stands still and the partners "take" the insults) - and then take one last step (so they should now be in each others' faces) and say their last insult.

Then you separate - and it is now the receiving row's chance to call someone a "meddling, cony-catching, boggler!"

Wrapping it Up  - Soak Up the Sun

When all the scenes have been performed - it is time to clean up and get ready to return to school  In most of the years that I did this - there was at least one period left that they must go to.  It is sometimes difficult getting students signed out of class - some teachers don't understand why students that are not performing need to watch their classmates put on their scenes.  To me, the watching - the being a part of it - is almost as important as the performing.  It is the only field trip I do all year - but some teachers are also resentful that I don't sign students out for anything that are failing my class - and I don't expect them to - if  their student is failing.

I want to make sure that we leave the theater as clean (or cleaner) than when we started (some 7 periods earlier) - so we clean up - make sure we have everything.  I remind them that their Director's Notebooks will be collected (see below) when we next meet.  I then play Sheryl Crowe's "Soak up the Sun".  That started one year when one of my students had a crush on the singer - and we actually created Illuminated Texts for Macbeth Day (something I would never do again - one giant assignment due that day is more than enough).  Anyhow - the student's Illluminated Text may have had something to do with Macbeth or sonnets but mostly it was an homage to the Singer Sherly Crowe and the background music was "Soak Up the Sun."  Since then, it is how we always ended the day.  And it was more than fitting.  

To do your best - to make life-long friends in the doing of it - to put yourself at risk and show  you can do something that no one thinks you can - well that's what Macbeth Day is all about.  Soak up the sun.  Carpe Diem.

If I taught a last period of the day British Literature - we took a day off and played the game, "Werewolf".  And that too became a tradition.

A Typical Macbeth Day Agenda

you can also find this on the sample Macbeth Day Program that I've included below

1st Period: Getting Ready - I always play "Brush Up your Shakespeare" from Kiss me Kate.
2nd Period: 9th period class's scenes
3rd Period: 7th period class's scenes
4th Period: 5th period class's scenes
6th Period: Lunch & Sonnet Contest Writing
7th Period: Sonnets read, Bombasts, insults
8th Period: Scenes performed by 8th period and Closing remarks.  I always (from about the 10th year on play Sheryl Crowe's "Soak up the Sun" and have the class just move and relax and chill to the upmost at the very end.