I'm teaching Macbeth!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Hey, everyone! Long time no see and all that. I’m finally done with my first semester classes (except that Literacy Case Study and the Connections paper). On Monday, I start student teaching.

It’s a little daunting. I’ve got a class of 36 tenth graders, and they’re all second language learners very near full fluency. They’re also loud, rambunctious, and incredibly sweet. I can’t wait.

We’re doing Macbeth, which isn’t the best of Shakespeare’s tragedy, but does tie into the year’s theme of “Power: who’s got it, who wants it” as well as their history class.

I plan to show them clips from Throne of Blood and Men of Respect as well either the Polaski version or the Welles version. The culminating activity will be putting one of the characters on trial for murder (either Macduff, because he’s still alive at the end of the play, or the Macbeths, because they’re just so ripe for it).

Woohoo! I’m an English teacher!

2

Congrats! Being a teacher is one of the best things anyone could possibly do. And Macbeth is one of my favorites - certainly appropriate for a tenth grade level. Hamlet would be a bit hard to handle in that age group, IMO. I hope you do well. I had lots of shitty English teachers (I hope you’re out there, Mrs. Landrum) and few good ones.

3

What are you teaching him? My I suggest you start with elementary spot removal?

4

I would suggest Julius Cesar, but that’s just me. It is much easier on the kids.

5

Julius Caesar? That’s what I had for 10th grade English, and most everything after Act II was impenetrable to me. Of course, our English teacher did not do a particularly good job explaining what was going on. We ended up watching the movie…

Romeo and Juliet at 9th Grade and Macbeth & Hamlet at 12th grade were considerably easier for me.

6

I wish you the best of luck. Most people I know that have spoken fluent Enlglish their entire lives have trouble with Macbeth.

7

Wow. I’m teaching freshman comp, and I’m so jealous. Let us know how it goes, and good luck!

Are you having them do any performance-type stuff – dramatic readings, sample scenes, whatever?

8

for some comic relief, you could have them read “The Macbeth Murder Myster”, a short story by James Thurber.

My HS senior English teacher gave us a joke list of Macbeth stuff. I wish I still had it. I remember a couple of items:[ul][]“Aroint thee witch! the rump-fed runyon cries.” Discuss the advantages of rump-fed over spoon-fed and intravenous.[]If your memory isn’t very good, memorize one of the following witches’ parts:[list][]Witch 1: Hail![]Witch 2: Hail!Witch 3: Hail![/ul][/list]

9

My senior year in high school we read Macbeth. My teacher was great, and had a great sense of humor, which was probably unfortunate for her as I was prone to coming to class early and adding to her notes on the board in a fair imitation of her handwriting.

One day she had a list of characters on the board, which I dutifully added to. She didn’t notice until she used it to illustrate part of her lecture. It read:

Macbeth
Lady Macbeth
MacDuff
Banquo
Groucho
Chico
Harpo

She actually shook her fist at me…

10

You should have responded:

“Thou canst not say I did it:
never shake Thy gory locks at me.”
–Macbeth, Act 3, Scene vi

I’d have given you an A.

“You blocks,
you stones,
you worse than senseless things!”
–Julius Caesar, Act 1, Scene i
Finally, congratulations, Phouka! Oh, and I strongly recommend Orson Welles’ version of Macbeth.

11

Congrats! I’m being “taught” it now in my 10th grade English class.

Whatever you do, DON’T use felt finger puppets to illustrate points or scenes. Your students will openly laugh at you in class and think you’re a total wacko.

I swear my teacher does this. However,I know you’ll make the Scottish play a joy to read and easy to comprehend for your students. Good luck.

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Hey! I said it was tough on me in the 10th grade… I can get by now, though I’ll admit I’m not altogether up on 16th Century figures of speech. So sue me.

13

Smeghead, I told my mom that joke and cracked her up.

mrblue and welfy, the kids have the original Shakespeare side by side with an easier text, which I think will help enormously. Plus, I’ll be working on some exercises with them so they can get the feel for the play as a whole as well as individual scenes.

Fretful Porpentine, well, I’d love to teach freshman comp, so we’re even. I promise I’ll do my best to teach these kids how to use commas appropriately.

Zyggie, Kilt-wearin’ man (have I told you how much I adore a man in a kilt?) I love your jokes. I’m going to have to steal your material.

DRY, thank you! But didn’t you know that it’s bad luck to go barding from the Scottish Play?

Sakura, I promise. No finger puppets. Ye gods.

14

At least they’ll appreciate the brevity of Macbeth. It’s short enough to not be much of a bother even for those who aren’t exactly keen on Shakespeare. Plus, it’s nice and bloody and violent. Also, it contains my favorite quote from all of Shakespeare:
“Out, out, brief candle. Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Also, it demonstrates the sheer folly of ever listening to a woman ;). I’d consider it a better play than Hamlet, while not as complex and difficult as King Lear, and more of a real tragedy than Julius Caesar.

15

I enjoyed Hamlet so much more than I did Macbeth. My preference goes like this, starting with my favorite:

Hamlet
Taming of the Shrew
Othello
Macbeth
Romeo and Juliet

I haven’t read Julius Caesar or King Lear.

Yet.

16

Hamlet’s my favorite. He’s just so…brooding. :slight_smile:

But Macbeth is a close second. I HEARTILY endorse Throne of Blood, FAN FREAKING TASTIC movie. And the last 5 minutes will keep any classroom enthralled.

My second cousin is the resident Shakespeare expert professor at MIT, I got a bunch of goodies from him once, including Ian McKellan and the Royal Shakespear co doing Macbeth. Brilliant stuff.

  • By the pricking of my thumbs
    Something wicked this way comes…*

good stuff.

17

Congrats phouka!

Whatcha mean? I did it in 9th grade. :slight_smile: Mind you, I got pretty miserable marks for everything in English that year. :slight_smile:

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“Finger puppets”?!?! :confused:

Well, I suppose it could be worse. She could have taught "Romeo and Juliet or “The Rape of Lucrece”.

::thinks about this concept, makes “o” with thumb and index finger and slides other index finger in and out of apeture. Realizes people are staring at him::

Anyway…

I’se just kidding, of course. :slight_smile: (Mr. Blue, I meant to add a note that I was paying you back, in jest, for the Rosebud thread, but forgot…)

I myself had a LOT of trouble reading my first Shakespearan play in college. (“WTF does this word mean? I should drop this stupid class”. The Penguin edition of Shakespeare’s works has good footnotes. But even then, dealing with the language is a real pain, at first.)

Swimming Riddles–I agree, McKellan is just great. By the way, I also recommend the BBC version of Macbeth, with Nicol Williamson (“Merlin” of Excalibur fame) in the title role.

Also, I recommend to anyone interested that they read the chapter on Macbeth in Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare. Puts a perspective on the play that I never learned in my college course.

A snippet from the book:
There’s a scene in Macbeth which deals with the English King’s ability to touch diseased individuals, and thereby heal them. (This doesn’t actually happen on stage)
Asimov asserts that Shakespeare put this scene in to flatter King James I, who was a big believer in “The King’s Touch”. Though he adds:

“Actually, since James was a physically dirty man of appalling personal habits, his touch was more likely to give disease than cure it.” :smiley:

Well, I thought it was hilarious…

19

Show the polanski version in its entirety. When I learned Macbeth–which is actually one of my favorites–it was DRUDGERY to read. But when I saw it on film, particularly teh above version, I understood it and it made the reading much easier.

I have a problem with reading a play. They were meant to be seen, not read, but since performing arts isn’t mandatory in most schools, they slap the title literature on a play and teach it that way.