Casting

Macbeth company

Set design

Costume design

Primary

Introduction to teaching Shakespeare in the primary school

Objectives from National Literacy Strategy

Lesson ideas drama and literacy:

Introduction to teaching Shakespeare in the Primary School

It is worth remembering that Shakespeare, like Dickens, was a great popular writer. Some of the language is complicated, but the main messages are always clear. Children’s appetite for words leads them naturally towards learning bits by heart, and once learnt it’s not forgotten.

Studying Shakespeare provides an ideal opportunity to integrate word and sentence level work with text level work. As long as the children get to learn the plot of the story, they won’t be daunted by the language. Many primary children love the story of Macbeth, with its plot, witches, spells, murder, dilemmas etc.

Allow the children to investigate the progression of the plot. Its magical content could inspire the children’s enjoyment, with the possibility of bringing up questions on morality. Encourage the children to explore the characters. Looking at their separate personalities and emotions. Examining the characters and their actions also enables the children to form a kind of relationship with them and allows them to establish their own opinions of the characters. Macbeth was written to be performed. Encourage the children to relish the sounds, to say them out loud, and not to worry about understanding every word. Shakespeare’s language was written for the theatre. The best way to bring it alive is to say it aloud.

Get the children to share the reading of a passage from Macbeth. Ask them to take it in turns to read a line at a time, two lines at a time, to read it stopping as soon as they get to some punctuation. Encourage the children to practise reading them aloud, emphasising the rhythm and adding movements and actions to accompany the line. Get them to walk around the room saying their line aloud as they pass someone – then make up lines of their own iambic pentameter (de dum de dum de dum de dum de dum).

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Year 5

Text range - Fiction and poetry in italics.

Term 1 - investigate word order, collect and classify idiomatic phrases, understand need for punctuation.

To include play scripts.

Term 2- explore onomatopoeia, investigate metaphorical expressions.

Longer classic poetry, including narrative poetry.

Term 3 - use a range of dictionaries to explore meanings and derivations.

Stories and poems from a variety of cultures and traditions, choral and performance poetry.

Year 6

Term 1- understand the function of the etymological dictionary, understand old verb endings and how words have fallen out of use, and understand more sophisticated punctuation marks (link to understand how punctuation is used to help indicate pause length for actors).

Poetry and drama by long established authors including, where appropriate, study of Shakespeare.

Term 2 - understand that the meanings of words change over time.

Range of poetic forms.

Term 3 - experiment with language, conduct detailed language investigations.

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Warm up activities

1 Ask children to walk around in room / hall.

• Introduce the stop signal – teacher hand raised, children to stop / freeze and raise hand.
• Ask children to be aware of each other and the environment.

2 Introduction name game with a clapping rhythm:

Standing in a circle
• Clap, clap, say your name, clap, clap – everyone repeats.
• Clap, clap, say your name, clap, clap – say someone else name, clap clap, then the new person says their name, clap, clap then someone else’s name.

3 Get the children in pairs.

• Introduce syllables through Nursery Rhymes – Ma ry had a lit tle lamb.
• Clap the rhythm of iambic pentameter - x, - x, - x, - x, - x (de dum de dum de dum de dum de dum -10 syllables, 1 unstressed, 1 stressed).
• Give pairs the challenge of creating a question and an answer to two lines of 10 beats.
• Listen to each others conversations.

4 Get the children to create a ‘storm’ using their own sound effects.

• In a circle, teacher leads by rubbing hands together.
• Each child in turn copies, one at a time in sequence.
• When that sound has completely gone round the circle then the teacher changes it to tapping hands together etc.
• Introduce clapping.
• Add stamping feet – reaching a crescendo of the ‘storm’.
• It is then reversed, as if the storm is subsiding.

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Introduce the story of Macbeth and read summary.

Read out extracts. Explain meaning and importance in the play.

• Extract 1 - Act 1 Scene 1
The first few lines of the play. It introduces the three witches, who talk about the war.

Extract 1

1 Witch

When shall we three meet again?
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

2 Witch

When the hurlyburly’s done,
When the battle’s lost and won.

Hurlyburly – uproar

• Extract 2
Act 2 Scene 1 Before Macbeth kills Duncan he imagines that he sees a dagger. He is starting to feel his dilemma and guilt.

Extract 2

Macbeth

Is this a dagger, which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee: -
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.

Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling, as to sight? Or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation

Art – are
Thou- you

• Extract 3
Act 2 Scene 2 Immediately after Macbeth kills Duncan, he tells Lady Macbeth that he has done the deed. He is in a state of shock and she implores him to pull himself together and put the daggers near the guards to make it look like they are guilty.

Extract 3

Lady Macbeth

Who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy Thane,
You do unbend your noble strength, to think
So brainsickly of things. Go, get some water,
And wash this filthy witness from your hand. –
Why did you bring these daggers from the place?
They must lie there: go, carry them, and smear
The sleepy grooms with blood.

Thane – Lord
Witness - evidence
Brainsickly – weak

• Extract 4
Act 3 Scene 4 After Macbeth has killed Duncan he becomes the king. He later orders that Banquo and Fleance (his son) be killed. Banquo is killed but Fleance escapes. At a banquet, later that evening Macbeth imagines he sees Banquo’s ghost. He is obviously desperately frightened and upset.

Extract 4

Macbeth

Pr’ythee, see there!
Behold! Look! Lo! How say you?
Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too.-

If charnel – houses and our graves must send
Those that we bury, back, our monuments

Pr’ythee – look
Canst – can
Charnel – funeral
Monuments - trophy

Then I’ll sit down. – Give me some wine: fill full: -
I drink to th’ general joy o’th’whole table
And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss

Avaunt! And quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee!
Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold;
Thou hast no speculation in those eyes

Th’ – the
O’th’ – of the
Avaunt – Go away
Hast – has

• Extract 5
Act 4 Scene 1 The witches chant their spell around the cauldron just before Macbeth visits them to find out more information about his future.

Extract 5

2 Witch

Double, double toil and trouble:
Fire, burn; and cauldron bubble.

Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork, and blind- worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg, and howlet’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell – broth boil and bubble.

Fenny – from the fens
Broth – soup

Ideas for lessons based on the extracts

1 Write up the words (in italics) from the text on cards and the modern day equivalent on other cards.

• Place the words in the centre of the room and get each person to take a card.

• Ask the children to think about what the words mean.

• Get them to try and match up there words, original text and modern equivalent.

• Look at the words and discuss.

• Present the word as a still image, show to others and try and guess the word.

2 In groups give them one of the extracts, or just two lines from the extracts.

• Discuss with the children about the meaning of the lines.

• Ask them to create 2 still images for their lines paying particular attention to the last word on each line.

• Think about a rhythm for their lines and how they want to say it.

• Find a way of saying their lines and moving from image to image that they can share.

• Present the lines and actions in sequence.

3 Look at extract 4 – Banquo’s ghost.

• Get the class to sit in a large circle and to pretend they are at Macbeth’s banquet.

• The teacher or one child moves around them pretending to be Banquo’s ghost.

• Tell the children that they could not ‘see’ Banquo’s ghost until they are tapped on the shoulder.

• They then have to pretend they could see Banquo’s ghost

• Get them to express their reaction through their body language,facial gesture and maybe extend into speech.

4 Look at extract 5 - the witches spell.

• Find three sets of rhyming words.

• Write down any more words that rhyme with these.

• List the different animals the witches use in their spell, and try to think of words which rhyme with them.

• Write their own witches spell, try and get it to rhyme. Get the children to decide on what the potion will do; will it be harmful or good’, will it make others rich or poor, fall in love or down a pothole?

• Think of words that suggest cooking sounds, remember ‘boil and bubble.

• Make a rhyming or rhythmic chant which can be repeated. It doesn’t have to make sense as long as it sounds spooky!

• You could pretend to mix the spell in a ‘cauldron’ using a mixture of vinegar and baking soda which results in a bubbling ‘magic’ spell.

• Are they ready to cast their spell!

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• Idioms – look up Shakespeare in a dictionary of quotations. Make a collection of idioms which originated in his plays. For example, foregone conclusion; more in sorrow than in anger; a tower of strength; to the manor born; to be cruel to be kind; nearest and dearest; eating me out of house and home etc.

• Language changes – investigate changes in usage and meaning over time. For example, Shakespeare uses both ‘comes’ and cometh’, although the old one was going out of use when he was writing. Investigate the meaning of the following, ye/you; silly; nice; presently; without.

• Changed spellings – look at spellings, for instance, why is the’e’ missing in roof’d; grac’d; reserv’d? The clue is pronunciation and the rhythm of iambic pentameter – the ‘e’ would add another syllable.

• Translation – have a go at translating short passages into modern English. Look at the abbreviations, e.g. in Macbeth’s banquet scene, ‘please't your Highness’;‘thou cans’t not say’;‘pr’ythee’; and the word order,‘How say you/ Why, what care I?

• Sayings and quotes – as well as sounding wonderful, Shakespeare’s words have had a huge influence on the history of the English language. Children could be surprised to discover how much of Shakespeare’s language has become part of everyday sayings and how many quotes they recognise already. For example, ‘is this a dagger’; ‘to be or not to be’; ‘all the world’s a stage’; tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow’.

• Poetic effects – Shakespeare’s language provides an ideal vehicle for looking at specific poetic effects. Investigate some of his use of metaphors and similes; 'as rheumatic as two dry toasts';' life is an unweeded garden' etc.

• Puns – Mercutio’s final words in ‘Romeo and Juliet’, ‘ask for me tomorrow and you shall find a grave man’.

• Onomatopoeia and alliteration – read the opening scene on the heath from Macbeth.

• Diary writing – write a diary extract, imaging that they are either Macbeth or Lady Macbeth. Take it from a significant part of the play e.g. after Macbeth has just seen the dagger; after he has killed Duncan; after Lady Macbeth has replaced the daggers etc. Encourage the class to consider how Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are feeling, how guilty / strong / devastated / confused they feel.

• Letter writing – imaging that they are Macbeth writing to Lady Macbeth about the witches prophecies. What would he say to her? Would he ask for advice?

• Letter writing - get the class to read the letter below from Macbeth to Lady Macbeth and get them to answer it as if they are Lady Macbeth.

My Dear Lady

This afternoon I met three witches. They told me that I would become King of Scotland. I would very much like to be the King and feel that I should now try to steal the throne. This thought troubles me. The only possible way I could become King is to take the throne off him. I could make war with him, but perhaps I could murder him? Why do the witches think that I should be King? I am confused and need your help my lady. What do you think I should do?

Your loving husband
Macbeth

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