Lesson Overview - Green Eggs & Shakespeare - Macbeth Introductory Exercises 1

No quiz today.  Remember - DON'T let the students read ahead - it's important that they come in to today's and the next lesson (The Macbeth Circle) without knowing about the play.  As the students come in I will give them the handout (found below), "Reading Shakespeare - from the page to a deeper understanding."  Please see that handout for the entire contents.  We spend the last 1/4 of the class, going over that handout - and I will go over some of those points below.  

Much (75%) of this lesson is taken directly from Shakespeare Set Free from the Folger Library and from a Lesson created by the late director of education at the Folger Shakespeare Library - Janet Field Pickering.  I will not be making the Shakespeare Set Free handouts available here and I urge you to purchase a copy - it is one (there are three of them - each containing three different Shakespeare Plays) of the most valuable (and revolutionary) resources for teaching Shakespeare in the classroom.

1) Improvisation - please see Shakespeare Set Free - Teaching Macbeth - "Hail, Brave Friend" (page 204)

For this exercise students will improvise scenes that are closely related to scenes and themes from Macbeth.  See the instructions in Shakespeare Set Free.  In my class, I copied the scenarios - pasted enough copies to card stock for all the members of the class.  I then divide the class up and give them a few minutes to practice - then they put on the scenes.  After each scene, I ask the class (excluding those who just performed) what they think they just saw (it helps put it in the entire class's mind - before they do the reading.  After all the scenes are performed (about 15 minutes total including distribution & practice) we move on to getting the rhythm of the play.

2) Green Eggs & Shakespeare - this part of the lesson was created by the late, incredible Janet Field Pickering.

After we go over the handout - I tell them that I do care about the language and 

1) I ask them if they know anything about the type of language (versse) that Shakespeare wrote in...

Answer: Verse.  Blank Verse.  Iambic Pentameter.  - I would eventually get this answer - students had read 1-2 Shakespeare Plays before getting to my class.

2) I then ask them what "Iambic Pentameter" is - I usually get an answer - an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.  In the old days - the students had done the Oxford English Dictionary assignment and already knew what I am about to tell them: "Most of what we speak in English is Iambic."  So I then ask them to tell me what Iambic sounds like.  They do.  And then I say ok -

3) "It sounds like this" - and then I lightly slap a desktop - followed by a harder, louder slap - a beat later.  I then ask the students to make the iambic desk slaps with me.  They do - in unision.   I feign disappointment.  "No, no, no - that's not enough - we need more."

4) "Ok", I tell them, "Say ba BUM"  They do.  So I ask them: "What is iambic pentameter?"  They should know this from our lesson on poetry and from having done Shakespeare in other classes.  Answer: "Five iambs"

"Ok - let's do iambic pentameter!"  And then first I, then the entire class do:  ba BUM  ba BUM  ba BUM  ba BUM  ba BUM

5) "NO NO NO - I'm still not feeling it! I tell them.  Let's stand up.  Let's try doing it with out feet - by stomping!"  So I tell them to start with a light stomp with their left foot - and then a HARD stomp with their right foot.  So we do that - and of course - I feign that they're just not getting it.

6) "Let's try saying something Iambic - while we're stomping!"  So I tell them that I just happen to have something written in iambic meter - and I pass it out".  This is the Green Eggs and Ham handout found below (thank you Janet Field-Pickering).  So I have the students read it together - really emphasizing the stressed beat: i DO not LIKE green EGGS and HAM....

7) I then say - "Hey - maybe if we combine the stomping with the reading" - so we do the two together.  But of course - that's not enough.

8)  That's when I take the students out into the hall - in front of the lunchroom.  And we march to Green Eggs and Ham (left foot first) - really shouting those stressed syllables - and having a ball all the way.  After that we March to the little iambic poem I made about "I LIKE shakesPEARE yes I do....    

9) Time to come back into the classroom....

3) Tossing Lines  - please see Shakespeare Set Free - Teaching Macbeth - "Hail, Brave Friend" (page 205)

Once your back in the classroom its time to read some actual lines from Macbeth.  This will give the students a preview of both the plays themes - but more importantly (for this lesson) it's meter and rhythm (continuing what you just did with "Green Eggs & Shakesepare".  See the instructions in Shakespeare Set Free.  I won't be reproducing those instructions or the lines that are thrown around here.  

In the broadest sense - you ask for volunteers - give them one of the lines (see Shakespeare Set Free) - again I print the line out and paste it to card stock.  Have the students get in a circle - and....(see Shakespeare Set Free).  I will tell you that I created a ball out of duct tape, after losing a hackey sack that I had,  for the line tossing (see my picture to the right - it has a picture of Shakespeare on it) - that the students can throw to the other line tossing participants....

4) Reading Shakespeare – from the page to a deeper understanding 

This part of the lesson is largely my own - though it too comes from what I learned from others.  With the remainder of the period we go over this handout BUT - I also tell the students NOT TO READ AHEAD.  It is crucial that they come into the next lesson (The Macbeth Circle) without prior knowledge.

Reading Shakespeare - (see the actual handout - here are some teacher things about it.)

1) Do NOT use Cliff Notes of books like Shakespeare Made Easy.  There are so many reasons, but the main one (which may not be clear to your students at this point - but will be I hope after the unit on Literary Criticism and Stephen Booth) is that the main thing that makes Shakespeare great is his use of words.  The actual text.  To use translated versions (I will resist the use of the word dumbed-down) is to miss the point.  We are not reading Holingshed's Chronicles or the texts that he stole his plots from - we are reading Shakespeare - there must be a reason beyond the plot for his works to have endured.

2 & 3)  Use the left hand side of the Folger Editions AFTER you have read it through once (but read the summary before you do that reading through).  It's important to try to understand - to stretch your mind, if you will.  The footnotes on the left hand side will explain some words the students may not know and some obscure concepts - BUT they will be able to follow 90% of the play without that (see The Macbeth Circle - the next lesson).

4) Push the students imaginations by getting them to imagine it as a play - BEFORE they watch a video or actual play of it.

5 & 6) My students had their own copies of the books - so they could write in them and have been doing so for much of the year (with poem handouts and their copies of Grendel).  See my handout on how to take notes on a text.  This handout goes over some specifics to plays and to Shakespeare.

7) The point of these preplay lessons are to give students confidence - to show them how much they know already - or in the words I tell them on the first of school: "To make myself obsolete."

8) It's a play - say it out loud if you can - we will be reading it outloud in class - after they've done the reading on their own.

9) Words Words Words - it's all about the words.  If the students don't know what a word means - they are expected to look it up.  I don't give them a list of words - I don't know what they know or don't know AND it is the way we naturally read and will read in college.

10.  I ask the students to read it twice - some will read it and then listen to an audio recording.  It depends on their time.  I try to spread out the reading to make it reasonable and that's why they get a bookmark to know what's coming up and to plan their time.

11) THIS IS KEY: I don't care about secret meanings, symbols, puns, double-entendres (that makes the class a lot more appropriate with Shakespeare).  It is more than enough with the short time that we have together to see what the words mean - how the words are used in a clever way - and how the story and characters progress.

5) The Macbeth Bookmark and Reading Schedule

Lastly, I give the students (or it may have been already on their desks when they came in (to save time) their Macbeth Bookmarks with a reading schedule.  I go over the bookmark - remind them NO HOMEWORK and lay down and take a nap.

On the first side of the bookmark are the due dates (these usually end up changing depending on our progress) along with some general ideas and themes to look for.  On the flip side are some often used vocabulary words that may be unknown to them - they will find more obscure words on the left hand page of their Folger Editions of Macbeth.

Macbeth - Folger Shakespeare Library Edition  Paperback
Macbeth - Folger Edition - Text Only 

The Folger Library has an online edition of the play without the annotations - Shakespeare words (what appears on the right hand page in the paperback edition.  It also includes in this online edition the very useful synopses  that appear before each scene.