Macbeth 10 - Macbeth Made Easy Group Work
"Reading Shakespeare Made Easy is like going to an Art Museum, and the art has been removed - and all that remains are the descriptions." one of my English III students
Macbeth Made Easy Group Work: I don't believe that is an overstatement to say that "this lesson goes against most of what my students had been taught in their English classes - since they entered school." From that first question about "What is the story?" to the references to theme, meaning, symbolism - the English Classroom has often focused on most everything except the words themselves.
The Literary Critic, Stephen Booth wrote that "Shakespeare is our most underrated poet." After initially being shocked - the more you think about what that says - the more sense it makes. Shakespeare is often taught using easier vocabulary, easier structured translations such as Shakespeare Made Easy or No Fear Shakespeare. The huge problem with those translations is that they assume that the most important thing about Shakespeare and his plays - are the stories. How many students read both the "easier" version and the original Shakespeare. But even for those who do read both - what is the point? Is it so students can understand the action - what happens and then delve into the original words? One major flaw with this is that even the meaning - the story if you will - is significantly changed when you change the words that are used. But perhaps much more importantly - it is in the "words" and their syntax that the genius of Shakespeare can be found - what Stephen Booth calls its substantive nonsense.
I am not going to go into depth here about the ideas of Stephen Booth - that will come later when we get to Literary Criticism. This lesson will give students a "taste" of these ideas. And by working in groups - and doing the syntactical detective work themselves, they have, after examining the evidence, a better chance of seeing why - as one of my students said - "Reading Shakespeare Made Easy is like going to an Art Museum, and the art has been removed - and all that remains are the descriptions."
Lesson Overview - Within the Volume of Time? - Macbeth Act 2 Small Group Reading
No quiz today - the students were already quizzed on Act 3 last meeting. You actually could use this lesson (and I have) before getting to Act 3. In some ways, it's actually better to do so: the students will then be reading the soliloquy that is used as the heart of this lesson, cold - and will appreciate it in a completely different way.
The Group/Solo Work
This lesson can be done as Group or Solo work and it works both ways - though the ideas are so huge - sometimes it helps to have a group to hear different students ideas. For a lesson that asks them (at least as a subtext) so much of what they've been taught about literature - it is helpful to have different perspectives.
Group Work Part 1
Group Work Part 1
The first part has students comparing two versions of Macbeth's Soliloquy from Act 3, scene 1. The first version is the Folger Version (Shakespeare's original words) - the second version is from Shakespeare Made Easy. Here are the students' instructions from the handout:
Compare the two versions of Macbeth’s soliloquy from Act 3, scene 1. Make whatever comparisons you wish – try to be open-minded (don’t let your teacher’s feelings enter your discussion) – But you must be specific and quote line against line (from each version.) Write down as many as you can: you have 9 minutes.
Group Work Part 2
The second part has very pointed questions that tries to have the students see for themselves how much actual "story" and meaning is changed between the two versions. Here are those directions and the first question:
Answer the following questions on a separate sheet of paper – Label that sheet: Macbeth Made Easy Part II ( All line numbers refer to the original Shakespeare (as found in the Macbeth made Easy Edition)
47 – Is thus only referring to being a king (see previous scene and notes from class)
48- 49 – What is the difference between “having fears” in something and having those “fears stick deep”?
Group Work Part 2b
This part uses something that we discussed in length in class - the daggers that Macbeth forgets to leave with the dead Duncan - and asks the students to enumerate on the differences between the original Shakespeare and its modernization.
Group Work Part 3
The most important and the most challenging part of this Group Work (in my mind). Students are now asked to send a member of their group up to the teacher's desk to get a very heavily annotated version of this scene, in the original Shakespeare. I have used colors, arrows, text boxes and more to try and show the incredible word and syntactical "textures" that Stephen Booth says are at the core of what makes Shakespeare great.
Most of these connections are merely marked (by arrows or by like colors) - the students will have to see what the connection is - they have to make the critical connection (and are therefore both much more likely to remember it - and to believe it). A simple example: In line 59 you have the line "They hail'd him" - well look at it this way: "They hail'd him". Those sounds (which of course in the audience you would hear) create an impression on the reader or listener. There are many many more examples if you look at page 3 of the handout.
On their own
For homework - on their own - the students have to take what happened today in class - and try to make sense of it. Here are those directions: After you go through as many of them as you can as a group – write ¾ to one page (on your own) on whatever “Big Picture” you can make out of all three parts that you’ve completed today BE VERY SPECIFIC.
When they finish - I hope they never look at literature the same way again (or at a copy of Shakespeare Made Easy).
Macbeth Made Easy Group Work (All Three Parts)
See the actual handout and the above Lesson Overview for more directions on the use of these Handouts. You will have to keep track of time very closely. There are times posted for each of the three parts - and you really want to give students enough time for that last part - the self-discovery.
If you can print out the third part in color - many of the annotations are color-coded. Or make a class set (this is what I did) and give both the color (which you get back) and a black and white (that students can keep and write on).
An excellent introduction to the ideas of Stephen Booth from the website Nautilus: "Close reading, the school that flourished mid-century and with which Booth’s work is most nearly affiliated, has never gone completely out of style. But Booth’s approach is even more minute—microscopic reading."
Remote Teaching
Of course this can be done in Small Groups Remotely if you've set your class up appropriately and students know how to get into Groups remotely. It is also a great way for students who have missed the class to get together and make it up.
Macbeth 10 - The Prompt Book, Act 3, scene 4: This is one of the most important lessons in the entire Macbeth unit. A prompt book, for the unitiated, is the annotated script that a director or actor would use in a putting on a play. This promptbook is an amalgamation of all the actors (in the scene), the director, the costume designer, the set designer and everyone else associated with that scene.
WHAT CAME BEFORE:
Thoughts on the Lesson
Perhaps the most consequential lesson on Literature that I teach this year - or, at least the start of it. This really is Stephen Booth - part 1. It puts this idea of the importance of words into the students heads - when we come back to it in about a month - it may seem not quite so outlandish.